


Warmer

by Ellie603



Series: Hot and Cold [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Roses leave Schitt's Creek AU, Season 3 AU (sort of), Sibling Bonding, Slow Burn, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 17:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22499908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellie603/pseuds/Ellie603
Summary: The Roses have been living in Schitt’s Creek for a couple years when the unexpected happens: they sell the town. For real this time. As David leaves the place he’d grown to call home and returns to his old life in New York, he begins to realize he left more behind than just the motel and the best friend he’d ever had. Maybe he does belong in Schitt’s Creek… after all, that was the only place he had ever felt his soulmate.As soulmates grow closer to one another, they feel warmer, and as they separate, they feel colder. Closeness is both physical closeness and emotional closeness – to fully feel the effects of a soulmate connection, two people need to be in the same physical space and be emotionally on the same page.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Hot and Cold [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647094
Comments: 218
Kudos: 386





	1. Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This fic exists because I read a ton of amazing Schitt's Creek AUs after I finished watching the show right before the s6 premiere, but I wanted more Soulmate AUs to add to the couple of lovely ones on here. So here we are. 
> 
> Basing a soulmate connection on the Hot/Cold game (or whatever you want to call it, I feel like it always just existed in my life without having an actual name) stems entirely from the fact that it's winter and I've been writing this fic primarily wrapped in several blankets.
> 
> I just have the last two chapters to write, so updates should be pretty quick and regular.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, I really hope you all like it!
> 
> Enjoy!

David stared at the text his father had just sent. Somewhere far away he was conscious of Stevie’s voice coming from behind the desk across the room, but he didn’t register a word she was saying. His friend had enlisted David’s help earlier in the week while she figured out what to do now that the motel was officially hers after the death of her great aunt, and since David didn’t have his Blouse Barn job anymore, he had the time.

Or, he had thought he had the time.

“David? Hey David?”

Stevie’s voice jerked him back to the motel lobby.

His friend looked at him suspiciously. “What’s up?”

David blinked at her. “Someone made an offer on the town,” he said as evenly as he could manage. “We’re selling it. For real this time.”

Stevie stared back him. “You’re… you’re _leaving_?”

David inhaled deeply and then nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Well fuck.”

As David got up off the sofa mechanically to find the rest of his family, he couldn’t help but agree with Stevie’s sentiment. Things were about to change. And everything David had known in the last two years since the Roses had come to Schitt’s Creek was about to be _completely_ fucked. Including things he hadn’t quite figured out yet.

David’s mom was, naturally, thrilled, practically bouncing off the walls of the motel room, clothes already packed, plans already being set in motion for once they returned to the city. David wasn’t sure she had thought it all through. It wasn’t like their old lives were exactly waiting for them outside Schitt’s Creek… though the prospect of moving out of the motel _was_ definitely appealing, regardless of any future prospects.

His father was more pragmatic, clearly trying not to get ahead of himself before the actual forms were signed. But he did assure David that the buyer was legitimate and also did not seem to be in danger of falling into a coma like the last one. This new offer came from a real estate developer who knew the area well and apparently had family connections in Elmdale. David could sense that his dad was uneasy about letting the town go, but his genuine positive opinion of the new buyer was serving to placate him.

David’s father had texted David first, wanting to wait to tell Alexis in person, but David volunteered to walk into town and tell her at work if only so he could get a better sense of her reaction. David wasn’t sure how she was going to take it. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how he was taking everything himself.

Alexis was shocked when David finally got out the news in Ted’s mercifully empty waiting room.

“So we’re leaving?” she said slowly as she grasped the meaning of David’s words.

David nodded. “Yeah.” He didn’t have anything else to say.

“Oh,” was all Alexis had replied. “Oh.”

David could tell that Alexis needed some time, and he certainly needed time too, so he left his sister and found himself wandering aimlessly around town.

The last time they’d had a buyer he’d been thrilled. He’d started packing immediately and looking up apartments, but it had all been overshadowed by his realization that he was alone in New York. All his ‘friends’ had abandoned him after the family lost their money, and if Alexis didn’t want to come with him and Stevie didn’t want to come with him… he was going to be alone again.

David knew he was different from the day he’d stolen Roland’s truck and absconded in the night only to end up at an Amish farm a few hours away. He’d had a job he was good at. He’d reaffirmed his friendship with Stevie, who he found himself relying on over and over. He was closer to Alexis and to his parents than he had ever been.

And for the last month, something else had been changing too.

David vividly remembered the morning he woke up three feet from Alexis, as he did every day, and knew instantly that something was different. He had gotten out of bed and checked his reflection in the motel mirror to make sure that he looked normal, but everything seemed fine. He thought about it all through his shower and morning routine, but it wasn’t until he slipped on one of his usual sweaters that he realized what had happened.

He didn’t feel cold.

As long as David could remember, he had always felt cold inside. A constant chill that almost necessitated knitwear during all seasons. And he knew why.

Adelina had explained it to him simply when Alexis was just a few years old.

“Do you know how sometimes when you’re looking for something I say you’re getting warmer if you’re getting closer and colder if you’re getting further away?” his nanny had asked him, a small smile on her face.

David had nodded curiously.

“Well, every person has a soulmate and whenever they get closer to their soulmate, they feel warmer inside and if they’re further away they feel colder.”

Young David had shivered. “So my soulmate is far away?”

Adelina nodded. “Yes. But someday you’ll find them, and you’ll feel warm and toasty inside.”

David had grinned at the thought. Warm and toasty. He’d like that.

Alexis felt it too, though she was better at ignoring it than he was. They never talked about soulmates together, but he saw her shiver sometimes, and he knew that wherever her soulmate was, he wasn’t anywhere nearby either.

Some teenagers and twenty-somethings would go on long road trips searching for the warmth of their soulmates, and David had always wondered if Alexis’s many trips around the world were at least partially to try to find her soulmate. But whether her world trekking was soulmate-related or not, he knew Alexis still hadn’t found hers.

Their parents were soulmates, naturally. David could almost feel the warmth from the two of them whenever they were together. And it wasn’t all about physical distance, he had discovered when he was older; there was an emotional closeness that was essential too. His parents were so emotionally in tune with one another that they were warm even when they weren’t in the same place.

David had always dreamed of that warmth, that rightness. But no matter where he went, he still felt cold, some days maybe a little closer to chilly and other days practically glacial (particularly on trips out of North America, which had confirmed for him at least that his soulmate lived somewhere on the continent), but no matter what, he was always cold.

Until that day he woke up in the motel and he wasn’t cold anymore.

That wasn’t to say he was warm, because he definitely wasn’t. There was still a bit of a chill inside of him that he couldn’t shake, but it was, without a doubt, the least cold he had ever been.

In the weeks that followed, David never felt freezing. He was still cold sometimes, but his overall baseline was increasingly neutral. Each week it felt like his insides, little by little, were inching toward something that could potentially be called warm. He wasn’t there yet by any means, but something was coming. His _soulmate_ was coming.

And David… David was leaving.

The rational part of his brain told him that he didn’t know a single thing about his soulmate, let alone if they were even actually coming anywhere near Schitt’s Creek. The lack of cold could just have been a cross country move that still landed the anonymous soulmate far away from David in the middle of nowhere. Or it could have even been some kind of emotional movement that had nothing to do at all with actually finding David. And even if his soulmate did end up in Schitt’s Creek, David had no guarantee of finding them, and honestly he was a little unsure of how that would go. The last relationship he’d been in had been with Jake which had ended badly to say the least, and it taken a full month before things were completely okay between him and Stevie after their awkward friends with benefits period.

David wasn’t good at relationships. Some random soulmate couldn’t do anything to change that.

So David packed. He listened to his mother go on about the apartment in the city she’d picked out for them to rent while they looked for a house. He watched his father pace around the apartment on the phone with the buyer, worry etched in his brow, though David wasn’t sure if he was worried it would fall through or that it wouldn’t. He waited for Alexis to say anything when she finally made it back from the Clinic, but all she did was begin packing up her things, a hard look on her face. It wasn’t directed at him or at either of their parents; she just seemed entirely absorbed in her thoughts. David wasn’t going to intrude on that.

The one thing he did actively do was seek out Stevie. Often her eyes were red when he found her and stepped in to help make beds or reorder files, pretending that things were normal and not about to end. David knew Stevie had been seconds away from a breakdown ever since her great-aunt died and she’d been suddenly faced with an entire motel to run by herself, and he felt terrible to be adding to the pressure she was under.

Stevie wasn’t mad at him, thank God, he didn’t think he could handle that, but she was overwhelmed and worried, and David didn’t know how to help. He knew that he wanted to so he did what he could, and that alone let him know that he was a different person than he used to be. Really, having a friend that was upset he was leaving was different enough.

The night before the buyer came to town to sign the deed found David and Stevie drinking together at the motel one last time.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” Stevie said with a softness that David had never heard from her before. She was slightly drunk but more sober than David had realized. “All you guys. Your parents drive me up the wall, but it’s gonna be so different without them here. And Alexis and… and you.”

“I know we’ve all gotten used to having you around,” David replied, not wanting to get too emotional even though he could feel it bubbling up under the surface. “I mean, you’ve made my time here survivable, that’s what I said last time, right?”

Stevie nodded, laughing through the beginnings of tears that were welling up in the corners of her eyes. “What a compliment.”

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” David admitted, surprising even himself with his bluntness. “There isn’t another Stevie Budd in the city or in New York or anywhere really. So, thank you.”

Stevie stared at him, blinking back tears, as she managed a small smile. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had too, David Rose. I’m gonna miss you. A lot.”

David nodded and then pulled his friend into a hug to hide his face and the tears he was sure were coming.

He thought about telling Stevie about the feelings inside him, how he wasn’t so cold anymore, how he maybe had a soulmate out there looking for him, but he rejected the idea immediately. Stevie had enough on her plate without adding David’s soulmate woes to the mix. And they’d only ever talked about soulmates once anyway, just long enough for both of them to confirm that they’d felt cold their entire lives. Stevie may have been the best friend he’d ever had, and he might have shared more of himself with her than he’d ever shared with anyone, but this wasn’t the time for any of that. Maybe it would never be the time for it.

In the morning, the buyer arrived, and the Roses waited to hear what their future was going to be. The meeting between David’s dad, Roland, and the new developer went smoothly, and before David knew it, his father had returned to the motel, signed deed in hand, driving a brand-new car, announcing that the Roses were back on their feet.

Time seemed to speed up after that. The motel rooms were emptied as David’s father made arrangements for much of their luggage to be sent on ahead of them. Roland and Jocelyn came over to wish them well with champagne and more tears from Roland than anyone really wanted to see, though David felt it was almost touching in a disgusting sort of way to know how much the mayor cared about them.

Bob and Ronnie dropped in ostensibly to get David’s mother to sign paperwork saying she was stepping down from town council, but David could tell Bob was sad to see them go. Even Ronnie shared a look with David’s mom that left the great Moira Rose speechless for a moment as though she was finally realizing that there were some drawbacks to leaving Schitt’s Creek, though a minute later she was up and checking her bags as though nothing had changed.

Twyla came by quickly on a break to say goodbye to all of them, which quickly devolved into a story about one of her mom’s boyfriends moving out that David really very much did not need to know about.

But the most awkward visit came from Ted, dropping by to see Alexis one last time.

Alexis had been in her own world since David had broken the news to her, so he felt it was only right to give her some space as she said goodbye to her former boss and fiancé, but as he started to drift into their parents’ room, Alexis stopped him and asked him to stay.

David looked at her oddly, but she shook her head and repeated the request.

So David nodded and moved instead to one of his suitcases to at least pretend he was doing something while his sister talked to the man she had once almost-sort-of married.

“I just wanted to say goodbye,” Ted said softly to Alexis once she let him into the room. “I’m going to miss seeing you at the Clinic every day.”

David tried to ignore the increasing awkwardness of his own presence as Ted’s eyes kept flicking over to him.

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss seeing you too,” Alexis returned, her words quiet.

Ted opened his mouth to start to say something, but his eyes landed on David again. It was obvious that Ted wanted to talk to Alexis in private, but David wasn’t going to move unless Alexis wanted him too. No matter how uncomfortable it was in their room.

Ted shook his head, apparently deciding to go ahead with whatever he’d been trying to say. “I, uh, we… I mean, Alexis, I just-”

“Let’s just leave it at goodbye,” Alexis interrupted Ted’s nervous rambling. Her words were even, but David could hear something like heartbreak in her voice. “That’s all we have to say.”

Ted finally exhaled. “Right. Goodbye, Alexis.”

“Goodbye, Ted.”

David heard the door shut before Alexis collapsed back on her bed, sobs wracking her body.

If having to listen to Ted’s goodbye had been uncomfortable, this was a thousand times worse. David was not equipped to handle a sobbing Alexis. Drunk? Yes. Even crying drunk? Sure. But this? Devastatingly sad for reasons David could not even begin to understand? David had no idea what to do here.

He stood up and made his way over to Alexis’s bed, sitting down beside her awkwardly. He touched her arm as gently as he could, trying to let her know that he was there for her, if she wanted him to be.

In a moment, Alexis had thrown her arms around him, sobbing now on his shoulder, and David could only hold her and try not to cry himself.

“I’m sorry,” Alexis said quietly when they finally separated. “It’s just been a rough week, you know?”

David nodded, blinking up at the ceiling for a moment, willing his face to return to normal. “Yeah, I know.” He turned back to his sister. “If you want to talk about it…” he trailed off to leave the invitation open, but Alexis shook her head.

“I don’t right now, but thank you.” She took a deep breath and smiled up at him. “We’re going back to society, David! We should start getting excited.”

David could tell she was forcing it, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. So he put on a matching smile and started talking about restaurants that weren’t Café Tropical and pretended things were okay.

Both of them slept badly that night, though neither one acknowledged it to the other when they got up the next morning and got ready together in their motel room one last time.

Stevie met them at the car as they loaded up their last suitcases into the trunk and on the roof.

David’s father shook her hand warmly, while David’s mother kissed her on both cheeks leaving Stevie looking awkward and confused. Alexis hugged her tightly before climbing into the back seat of the car, further disorienting Stevie, but finally leaving David to say goodbye to his friend.

“We’ll keep in touch, right?” David asked, suddenly nervous that leaving Schitt’s Creek might also mean losing Stevie entirely.

Stevie shrugged non-commitally. “I mean if there’s no one else to talk to, I guess maybe I could text you. But just like if there was nothing better around.”

David rolled his eyes as Stevie’s sarcasm gave way for once into a seldom-seen smile.

“Of course, I’ll text you,” Stevie amended. “I think I might go crazy without you.”

David allowed himself to smile too as he pulled his friend into a hug.“Best wishes,” he joked one final time as he released her.

A tear slipped down Stevie’s cheek. “Warmest regards.”

She waved at the car as David’s dad pulled out of the motel parking lot.

David turned and waved back.

None of the Roses spoke as they drove out of town past the “Don’t worry, it’s his sister!” town sign, back toward the city, toward home. Or at least that’s what David kept telling himself.

He had to keep saying it over and over to try to make it feel right. Because with every mile they drove away from Schitt’s Creek, he could hear Adelina’s voice in his head from his childhood game reminding him intensely that he was going the wrong way.

_Cold, colder, colder._

His soulmate had been making their way to Schitt’s Creek, but David wouldn’t be there to greet them.

He shivered in his seat and hugged his sweater tighter around him. He’d been cold all his life. He could get used to it again.


	2. Colder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the kind words about the first part of this. I'm really glad you guys are liking the idea so far!
> 
> This chapter's a little less soulmate focused, but things will come back in the next one :)
> 
> Enjoy!

Fortunately for David, the Rose family’s arrival back in the city was so hectic that he didn’t have a chance to think very hard about Schitt’s Creek or Stevie or his soulmate for any length of time. He had to help his mother furnish the family’s new apartment while his father was in and out figuring out finances and already jumping at new business opportunities, and David also had to unpack his own things into his new temporary bedroom before he found an apartment in New York.

Any free moment he had, he spent in the city experiencing the culture that he’d missed in Schitt’s Creek. He visited galleries, saw shows, shopped at stores that were not the Blouse Barn. The constant ache in his chest that something was wrong, that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, was lessened, if only temporarily, by these bits of his old life that he had always enjoyed, even on the worst days.

Spending time alone in his room was the hardest, so he avoided it whenever he could, but when he fell asleep at night the enormity of the change in the family’s life crept up on him. His bedroom was about the same size as he and Alexis’s motel room, but with none of the terrible décor or unexplained stains. But as David lay in bed, alone, without the annoying (or sometimes comforting) breathing of his sister to keep him company, the room felt much emptier than his old room. Lonelier. Alexis was down the hall instead of in the bed next to him, and his parents were across the apartment not through an impossible-to-lock connecting door. He couldn’t help the little part of him that missed the closeness, though the larger part of him that was ecstatic about the walk-in-closet was usually able to shout the sad part down.

Alexis was out of the house more than she was in it, but she always returned in time to pull David and sometimes their parents out to dinner at any one of the many fancy restaurants in the city that they had sorely missed during their time in the middle of nowhere.

Sporadic dinners together while rare, were not entirely unheard of for the Rose family of the past, but the conversation certainly was different.

“David, have you decided on an apartment yet?” his mother asked from across the table at the restaurant they were dining at that evening. “The one Alexis showed me pictures of yesterday looked positively darling.”

“I’m still going back and forth,” David replied, sighing. “It’s nice, but I’m not sure if it’s where I want to be in the city.”

“David, you’re just making excuses,” Alexis cut in, her words teasing. “You love the apartment, and you know it.”

David rolled his eyes, but he knew Alexis was right. He did _really_ like the apartment.

Looking for a way to change the subject, his eyes settled on his father who was still staring intently at the restaurant’s single page menu as though he hadn’t had time to read the entire thing at least five times already.

“Having trouble deciding what to get, Dad?” David asked.

His father looked up, a little startled, and then shrugged. “It’s Tuesday. That was meatloaf night in the café. I always knew what to order.”

“Yeah, that was the nice thing about the café: such a limited menu you never had a hard time figuring out what to get,” David deadpanned back.

Alexis and their mother both laughed, and his father cracked a smile.

“Literally every restaurant we go into, I keep expecting giant menus that take up the entire table,” Alexis confessed, grinning.

“Oh, don’t remind me of such troubled times, Alexis,” their mother said with a shudder, but there was a smile on her face.

David couldn’t help but smile a little himself. He couldn’t remember any dinner in the old days when his mother asked about his life with actual knowledge about what he was up too. And joking around about common experiences was certainly not something that would ever be part of their old lives. Snide comments about one of them for the amusement of the others, sure, but never genuine smiles from all of them in a situation that didn’t involve some very juicy celebrity gossip.

And, though he felt cheesy admitting it, he was mostly glad to see Alexis looking happy.

Once they made it to the city, David didn’t see any more of the sadness that had haunted Alexis after her goodbye with Ted, but he could tell she was keeping herself extra busy in a different way than she had ever been busy before. In the old days, Alexis would disappear for weeks without warning and then pop up for a quick lunch or, more often, a text out of nowhere asking for a passport or some specific piece of jewelry from her room that David had to produce, just grateful she was actually okay. Establishing a routine where the two of them would get dinner together every night was new. Well, it had been usual in Schitt’s Creek, but it was new for here.

And it wasn’t just dinner. Alexis dragged him to the DMV to get his license renewed when it came out that David’s had expired, shouting down his worries the entire way there. And she excitedly offered apartment advice as David finally decided to put down a deposit on the cute apartment that he’d loved ever since he saw the pictures the day they’d gotten back to the city.

Alexis, it seemed, was content for the time being to stay with their parents, though David could sense some hesitation in her like she wasn’t quite sure what she should be doing. It was how David felt himself. In the old days he’d had his galleries, but they were gone, along with the person he used to be. It had taken him time to build up what he’d had in New York, but David didn’t have that luxury anymore.

He knew his mom and Alexis to a lesser extent weren’t necessarily cognizant of their current financial situation, but David had learned a bit since he had first started working out the Blouse Barn, and he was hyper-aware of the fact that someone buying Schitt’s Creek did not bring their old lives, or specifically their old income, back. They had a decent sized lump of money, but none of them were employed and his father hadn’t made any new investments, and with rent and apparently a new house if David’s mom got her way, they were going to run through it all sooner rather than later.

David knew that it was up to him to try to support himself at least. He’d been the sole breadwinner of the Roses while he worked at the Blouse Barn, and he could do it again, at least until his father found a hopefully lucrative business to invest in.

So he started looking for jobs in New York and actually lined up some interviews fairly quickly. He knew it was the Rose name giving him a leg up, but he was grateful for the assistance regardless of where it came from. These were jobs that he actually had relevant experience doing, unlike his brief stint as a grocery bagger early in his stay in Schitt’s Creek, so all he could do was hope that things would go well.

“Oh, good luck in New York, David!” Alexis squealed as she gave him a hug by his new car outside their parents’ apartment the day he finally left. “I’ll come visit soon!” David was grateful that only Alexis had elected to come out with him; the quick, but sincere, goodbyes he’d exchanged with his distracted parents had been better than anything awkward and drawn out.

David rolled his eyes but hugged her back. “When did you ever visit me in New York?” he asked skeptically. “And texting me to come get lunch because Stavros or someone took you to the city and abandoned you for some reason doesn’t count.”

David saw a flash of something like sadness cross Alexis’s eyes before she shook her head and laughed, back to her usual bubbly self. “Of course I’ve visited you in New York, and I’ll do it again. Obviously.”

David sighed and allowed Alexis a half smile. “I guess you can come stay. Assuming my apartment is actually nice. I can’t believe you talked me into renting a place without actually seeing it.”

“You had to, David!” Alexis whined, falling easily back into their usual banter. “It was just the cutest thing, and someone was going to snatch it up! Ashlee and Mara used to live on that block, and they had such a sweet apartment. It’ll be great, I promise.”

David shook off some of his nervousness and took a deep breath. “I guess we’ll see.” He turned and opened his car door. “Okay I need to go. Bye, Alexis.”

Alexis beamed at him. “Bye, David!”

David sighed as he watched her walk back inside in his rear-view mirror. He hoped she would be okay. And he hoped that she actually would come stay with him once he was settled and also that she was right about the quality of his new apartment. He didn’t exactly trust Alexis. But, then again, he didn’t _not_ trust her either.

So David drove out of the city and onto the highway heading south, back to where he’d been before. To the life he’d had before.

And he pretended not to notice that he felt colder and colder the closer he got to his new (old) home.

As David pulled onto his new block, mercifully finding temporary parking not too far away from the building, he wished, not for the first time, that he had brought someone with him. Alexis wouldn’t have been very helpful, though she would have at least kept him company. Stevie would have been better, but Stevie was miles and miles away, up to her eyeballs in paperwork and motel maintenance.

So David did it on his own. He got the key from the property manager and took his first few bags up to his new apartment. Mercifully, Alexis had been right and the apartment was cute and definitely functional. Not big of course, it was New York after all, but it was acceptable. The furnishings were also acceptable, though David was already cataloging what he needed to add to really make it his. More furniture was supposed to be delivered the following week, but the sofa that came with the living room was adequate for the present, as was the bed in the single tiny bedroom.

Eventually his car was fully unloaded, including the wooden trunk he had “made” with Mutt Schitt that had been an absolute disaster for him to get up the stairs, and David had left the car at the astronomically expensive long-term garage he’d found a few blocks away.

David had never had a car in the city when he had lived here before. Or, more accurately, he’d had a driver when he needed a driver. This time, his father had insisted that David get a car himself for ease of travel outside New York, and David had only put up a half-hearted argument. In reality, a car, even in the city, meant a quicker way back to his parents and Alexis and (though this was much deeper down, shoved somewhere into his subconscious) a quicker way back to Schitt’s Creek if it ever came to that.

He doubted it would, but the thought was still comforting in the back of his mind.

David spent the rest of the day, aside from a frantic communication with the internet company to get his wifi set up, unpacking, which he really had gotten good at during his time at the motel and then at his parent’s apartment. He knew just what should go where, and now having two whole closets for his own personal use was a godsend.

Eventually, David determined he’d done more than enough for one day, so he got Chinese from a restaurant down the street and pulled out his phone.

He thought of texting Stevie, but something possessed him to select her contact and actually press “Call.”

“Hello?” Stevie sounded confused in David’s ear.

“Hi, I wanted to register a complaint about one of your rooms,” David replied seriously.

“So sorry,” Stevie shot back. “You must have the wrong number. No one could ever complain about my motel.”

“Oh, you’re right. I forgot about the ceiling leaks and terrible coffee and complete lack of customer service. Five stars.”

“Thank you for the testimonial, I’ll be sure to write that down.”

“Please do.”

“Is that everything?”

David could practically hear Stevie’s smirk.

He rolled his eyes. “Hey Stevie, how’s Schitt’s Creek?” he asked with a fake sincerity.

“Literally exactly the same, thanks for asking,” his friend replied dryly.

“So another family of down-on-their-luck rich people has moved in to rooms 6 and 7?”

“Oh sorry, I meant it’s literally exactly the same here _except_ these annoying guests who had seriously overstayed their welcome and kept asking me for things finally left after literally years. It’s just better here, actually.”

“If I recall, one of those super annoying guests spent most of his last two weeks in Schitt’s Creek helping you answer guests asking you for things.”

“Was it really helping though? I mean you were definitely high for at least part of it.”

“So were you!”

“My motel, I can do what I want.”

“This really isn’t boding well for your review.”

“So today was moving day, right?” Stevie asked, dropping their joke to actually ask about his day. This was the general course of conversation with Stevie, and David appreciated the normalness of it.

“It was,” he affirmed. “I’m sitting in my new apartment as we speak.”

“Is it actually nice?” Stevie had been on the receiving end of some worried texts from David over the past few days.

David looked around and allowed a contented smile to fall onto his lips. “It is actually. I’m glad I got it.”

“Good.” It was rare to hear Stevie be entirely genuine, but David could tell she was truly happy for him.

The thought made him smile even as he felt a pang of something like homesickness.

“So, really, are thing at the motel okay?” David asked.

He could almost hear Stevie’s shrug. “Could be worse. I talked to Ray about selling it, but I feel like I owe it to Aunt Maureen to try for a least a little while?” She seemed unsure. “There’s some new guy who works for Ray who ended up coming over and looking at the budget the other day. He said he’d get back to me with his recommendations, so that’s something.”

David smiled in spite of himself. “I think it’s really brave of you to try to keep the motel, and you have all my support.”

“At least with you in New York your ‘support’ doesn’t have to come in the form of ‘helping’ me clean motel rooms. I swear I get through things twice as fast as I did with you.”

“Shut up, Stevie.”

“You literally called me.”

The pair talked for a little while longer about David’s upcoming job interviews that week and bad motel guests and whatever else. Neither one said that they missed the other, but David knew it was pretty well implied.

After they said their goodbyes and David threw out his empty food containers, he got a text from Alexis requesting a picture of his apartment, which David supplied, making sure to keep the last of his unpacked boxes out of the photograph.

 **Aw, David it’s so cute!** Alexis responded immediately.

And then a minute later: **Mom and Dad like it too!**

David realized with a pang that the rest of his family must be eating dinner together right now. Even when they were in Schitt’s Creek David didn’t eat with his whole family every day; in the months before they left, it had become just a couple times a week, plus some breakfasts with his mother and lunches with Alexis. But missing this dinner felt harder than it should have.

Exhausted from the long day of driving and moving boxes upstairs and unpacking, David went to bed early that night. He was glad to be back in the city. He was glad to have his own apartment. Things were looking up.

Even if he did need an extra blanket on his bed to compensate for just how cold New York made him feel.

It felt colder somehow than it had the last time he’d been here, and he had a pretty good idea why. The old David didn’t have any idea just how nice not being cold could be. But David knew now. And as he settled into his blankets and drifted off to sleep, his last thought was of a world where he was warm, where he didn’t feel so alone.

In his dreams, that world looked just a little bit like Schitt’s Creek.


	3. Frost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the really lovely comments on this!
> 
> This one's a lot of sweet David and Alexis stuff, so I hope you all like it!
> 
> Enjoy!

Three weeks later found David on the floor of one of New York City’s fanciest department stores after the doors had long been locked. He was one of the last people left in the building, just a janitor finishing sweeping the floors, a security guard checking exits, and a young intern who was helping David with last minute changes to the store display.

David had interviewed for a few different positions during his first week in New York, but his favorite had been for a temporary brand manager position, urgently needed, with a possibility of extending the position if he did well there. David knew that it was the Rose name and his gallery management experience that had gotten him the job with just two interviews (and also the desperation of the store since the previous manager had apparently left without any notice in the middle of redoing the store floor), but it was his time at Blouse Barn that was actually helping him. He knew how to arrange, how to display, and how to make the most of what he’d been given (which, thankfully, was far more than he’d had in Elmdale), and he, after months of his father and Wendy drilling it into his head, was conscious of cost (though he wasn’t going to sacrifice quality to save money; he wasn’t an animal).

His new boss seemed to like him, and the intern that he’d been put in charge of was good at following instructions and had some good ideas herself. David had barely been working there a week and a half, but he liked it. It wasn’t bad having a job like this. He had to stay late in the evenings (it was either that or come in early, and David refused to even consider that option), and the store was further from his apartment than he would have liked, but, all in all, David was pleased. It wasn’t a life he would have considered in the past, but for now it felt nice. And if it could help pay for his apartment and everything else so his father didn’t have to, all the better.

The days passed uneventfully. David was busy, but he didn’t mind. Things were less insane than they had been in Schitt’s Creek, but there was a lot more to do here. He went out for drinks with coworkers and visited local galleries. Some people knew he was, but most didn’t. He didn’t reach out to anyone from his old life, and no one reached out to him. They had to know he was there. Alexis wasn’t quiet on social media, and their mother had informed plenty of people that the Roses were back in society, but no one seemed to care about him. David wasn’t sure if he should be grateful to not have any awkward run-ins with people from his past or upset that he’d been more or less forgotten. He generally settled on a bit of both.

Much to David’s surprise, Alexis actually did come to visit him once he’d been living in New York for a couple months. She texted him a couple days in advance, and he didn’t even complain about having to pick her up from the airport Friday morning before work.

The hug from Alexis outside the terminal was one of the tightest ones she’d ever given him.

David pulled back to look at her and was met by something in her eyes that he didn’t recognize.

“I’ve missed you, David,” she said, the look passing over her face and leaving behind her usual bubbly smile. “But we should get going. I’m only in the city for a few days, and there’s a bunch of stuff I want us to do.”

David narrowed his eyes, confused both by Alexis having lots of plans and by those plans all including _him_ , but he let it go and got back in the car.

Alexis was incredibly chatty in the car, filling David in in greater detail than he’d received in texts and phone calls all about their parents’ new house that their mom was having an impossible time decorating and how their dad still hadn’t found a business to invest in and about this and that friend of Alexis’s (though certainly fewer names appeared than before, and Alexis seemed to care more about their parents than anyone else). She made David tell her all about his job and his new coworkers and she asked about Stevie, and David found out that Alexis actually texted Twyla a fair amount which was not a friendship that he thought would survive the family’s departure from Schitt’s Creek.

From the outside, it was just typical Alexis, but David knew his sister well, and he could tell something was off. All the conversation was a distraction, maybe for herself as much as for him. Keeping busy, that’s how Alexis dealt with problems. It worried David a bit, if he were being honest, but all he could do was let her stay busy and be there for her if she needed him. That’s how he had generally dealt with Alexis in the old days, only her problems then were more of the getting taken hostage variety than anything emotional. David knew confidently he was more equipped to deal with a sultan holding Alexis in his palace than he was equipped to handle any kind of existential crisis from his sister.

Alexis gushed over his apartment when they arrived, and, through gritted teeth, David insisted that she take the bedroom.

“Aw, David!” Alexis had grinned at him as though he were a cute animal rather than her brother, and David fought back the urge to make a comment about him getting murdered first.

David had to work that evening, but Alexis, again surprising him, elected to come with him to see the store.

Alexis introducing herself to David’s coworkers as “Angela Bloomfield” and her attempts to flirt with the admittedly attractive menswear sales associate aside, David liked having Alexis at the store with him. She gave him some remarkably good social media advice for the store, and she genuinely complimented a window display that David had worked on for several weeks.

But more than anything, David was glad that she didn’t leave. He would have thought she’d get bored just watching him work, but she seemed happy just to spend time with him. And David would never have admitted it out loud, but he was happy to spend time with her too.

After work, Alexis pulled him and a few other store employees around to a few different clubs which ended in shots and karaoke and the most fun David had had since he’d come to New York.

And even if they were both a bit hungover and decidedly more subdued the next day, he’d had a fun time with his sister and that meant a lot.

Alexis stayed with him the entire weekend, leaving his side only for a bit on Sunday to have lunch with some old friend or other, but she didn’t stay there long and didn’t provide any details after she got back when David asked her about it.

Dropping her off at the airport on Monday morning was much harder than he thought it would be. She was quiet in the car, her eyes distant.

“Thanks for coming, Alexis,” David said as he pulled her bag out of his car.

Alexis smiled at him, almost wistful. “I told you I would, didn’t I?”

David rolled his eyes, but he allowed himself a small smile.

“Come back home soon, okay?” Alexis continued. “You have to see the house and everything.”

“I will,” David replied, surprising himself by how much he really did want to see his family. “Tell Mom and Dad I say hi.”

Alexis smiled again and hugged him before turning and walking through the doors to security, shivering a little bit before she was obscured from David’s sight.

As David drove back to his apartment, he found himself worrying about Alexis. It felt weird to worry when he’d just seen her and actually knew where she was going, but Alexis seemed so… sad. She did all her Alexis things and was being extra nice to him because she hadn’t seen him in a while, but when she was on her own, she seemed more like the Alexis who had stared out the window the entire drive out of Schitt’s Creek to their parents’ apartment than the old bubbly Alexis or even the Alexis from Schitt’s Creek who had gone through multiple tough break ups and asked David for a hug. She was drifting, unsure… David knew because he felt it too.

And the shivering, he could definitely relate to that. New York felt even colder with Alexis gone.

But work went on. David’s boss started talking about having him sign a new employment contract once his original four-month one was up so David would be able to stay on longer. His old intern left, and HR assigned him a new one. The cute menswear associate asked David out on a date, but it didn’t go further than a couple drinks after work, with David leaving fairly early in the night.

David’s excuse was that he had to get in early to work the next morning (which was true, a shipping company was insisting on an 8AM delivery much to David’s distress), but when the man asked if David wanted to go out again, he declined, saying he just wasn’t looking to date anyone right now.

David wasn’t quite sure why he’d said no. The other man was attractive and funny and had witnessed David doing karaoke and still had asked him out, but it just didn’t feel right. Really, ever since David had felt the almost warmth of his soulmate back in Schitt’s Creek, nothing else seemed worth it.

Which was dumb because David was in New York now and his soulmate wasn’t, and David probably wasn’t even going to meet his soulmate ever. So it really shouldn’t matter if he made out at a bar with some cute, funny guy who actually liked him. But David couldn’t really control what was going on in his mind, so he let it go and hoped he’d get over it sooner rather than later. It probably would have been good for him to make out with the cute menswear guy.

He’d been in New York almost four months when the regular, albeit relatively monotonous, life he had constructed for himself finally collided with the life he’d had before.

“Oh my God, is that David Rose?”

David felt his breath catch in his throat before he slowly turned around from the clothing rack he was adjusting.

“Wow it’s been forever, man!” A thin, dark-haired man wearing a t-shirt with a price tag that would have shocked Stevie called over to him, another man and three women following after him. “You never said you were back in the city!”

David forced his features into a smile at the group who had just unexpectedly wandered into his store. Some of his former friends. Great. “Yeah, it really has been a while!”

There were cheek kisses and half hugs in greeting as David took in the sight of these people, not one of whom had reached out after the Roses had lost their money. Eric, the man who had spotted him, Adele, and Gia had displayed work in his galleries, and Micah and Eryn had been regular attendees at openings and any event that David (or the Roses) had ever paid for in the city. In fairness to them, David hadn’t paid any one of them a single thought after his first week in Schitt’s Creek, but still.

“So do you like _work_ here?” Eryn asked, staring at his name badge.

“Yeah, I’m a Brand Manager, so I do the displays and store layout and work with the PR team on social media for the store,” David answered, trying to imbue his words with confidence.

He saw Gia and Micah exchange glances, but Adele smiled at him and exclaimed that that was “so cool,” while Eric clapped him on the back and said “good for you” in perhaps the most patronizing voice David had ever heard.

“You should totally come out with us,” Adele said, a manufactured earnestness in her voice that David knew well. He’d often sounded like that himself when he’d lived in New York before everything had changed. “After you’re done here, obviously.”

“Yeah, there’s a new exhibit opening at Celia’s gallery,” Gia advertised, flipping her hair as she spoke. “Everyone’s going to be there. I’m sure we could get you in.”

“It’s some of the best stuff Sebastian’s done in years,” Eryn added too casually. “It’s all on the collapse of the human spirit and, like, society.”

David blinked at her. “Sebastian Raine?”

David watched Eryn act as though she suddenly remembered something. “Oh, you two used to date, right? Like years and years ago?”

David gritted his teeth and nodded. “Yeah, years and years ago.”

“Then you should totally come with us and catch up with him!” Adele said with that same fake smile.

Gia nodded along, suddenly more excited by David’s presence now that there was some potential for drama.

“I don’t think I can tonight,” David said quickly. “There’s a lot to do here after we close. But maybe some other time.”

“Oh yeah, of course,” Eric said with such fake sympathy that it took everything David had to fight back an eyeroll. “See you around!”

David managed to maintain his smile until the group had left the store, at which point he promptly turned and practically ran to his mercifully empty shared office in the back of the store.

How had he ever been friends with those people? David knew the answer: he had been just like them.

But he wasn’t anymore. He wouldn’t try to trick a friend into going to see an ex just for the entertainment of it all. He wouldn’t disparage someone’s job or the very fact that someone _had_ a job.

He thought of Stevie, the best friend he’d ever had. They had always been honest with each other to the point where it was uncomfortable sometimes. He didn’t know how to be fake with Stevie like he had been with his New York friends for years. He didn’t _want_ to be fake with Stevie or with Alexis or with his parents.

He was struck with a pang of homesickness.

David didn’t emerge from the back until after closing when he made his last sweep through the store, restocking and rearranging with a couple sales associates and his new intern. His coworkers were giving him a wide berth, which let David know they’d heard his interaction with his friends or had at least seen him sprint away and hide in the back room, but he didn’t acknowledge it and neither did they.

He texted Stevie once he was back in his apartment eating Thai food, low music coming from his computer. **My shitty old New York friends just tried to get me to go to my ex’s gallery opening like it’d be a fun time.**

Stevie texted back a minute later. **Ew gross. I mean about just going to any gallery opening.**

David ignored her attempts to tease him about his former career. **Like imagine if I took you to some weird Schitt’s Creek festival and Jake was there and I knew but you didn’t. That’d be shitty.**

It took a few minutes before Stevie finally texted back. **Um actually about Jake…**

David immediately forgot the entire conversation he’d had with his old friends in light of the new information that Stevie was still seeing Jake after they’d both agreed it was too weird.

He quickly called his friend, needing actually hear Stevie try to defend herself.

After many fake-angry accusations from David and fewer reluctant and embarrassed answers from Stevie, David found himself grinning. David didn’t _really_ mind Stevie sleeping with Jake (like he did mind a little, but not that much), especially now that David had been away from Schitt’s Creek for months, but it was fun to mess with her.

Eventually the conversation moved away from Jake and back to David’s day, but David found it a lot easier to ignore what his former friends had said now.

“So what have you been up to? I mean aside from all the time you’re spending with Jake,” David asked, easily allowing the conversation to move from his own problems now that he felt better.

“Ha ha. So funny, David,” Stevie replied, clearly not amused.

David was thrilled to have this new information to tease her with.

“Things are okay,” Stevie answered finally. “That guy who works for Ray, Patrick, has a couple more ideas for the motel, so we’ll see how that goes.”

Stevie had been putting a lot of work into the motel over the last four months, and David was proud of her. This Patrick person had been helping her a couple times a month, and Stevie seemed more sure of herself with someone who knew business helping out. David had wondered a little about this new figure that he had never met, but Stevie only ever mentioned him in passing, so David had never bothered to find out anything else. Working for Ray, he had to be either some old guy who had taken on a side job before he retired or a fresh-out-of-college business geek who had somehow landed in Schitt’s Creek. David had to pity the guy a bit. Ray was a lot, and Patrick had to be desperate for some outside company if he was doing motel finances in his spare time.

Then Stevie asked about his family, and David found himself feeling sad again.

“I miss them. More than I thought I would, even after months,” he admitted. “New York’s quieter than it used to be. I always used to have things to do and people to do them with, but I don’t really anymore.”

“You got used to it here though,” Stevie reminded him.

David sighed. “That’s different.”

“If you’re lonely, then do something,” Stevie suggested with a quiet exasperation. “You can control this.”

David wanted to correct her, but she was right. He _was_ lonely here. He’d been lonely in Schitt’s Creek until he wasn’t, but somehow, despite all the people and things to do in New York, he felt even more alone.

As he thought about Stevie’s advice for a moment, he remembered Alexis asking him to come home soon. That could help. If he came in early Friday, he could leave after work and spend the weekend with his family. He could shake off what his “friends” had said to him and maybe he’d miss New York so much that he’d be happy to come back.

“Maybe I’ll go see my parents this weekend,” he said finally.

“Good,” Stevie replied, serious for a moment. “I thought I was done hearing you complain about stuff once you left here, so whatever makes that stop.”

David rolled his eyes, but he felt lighter than he had all day, maybe than he had since he moved to New York.

After he got off the phone with Stevie, he texted Alexis, who replied almost immediately with lots of exclamation points.

David was grateful Alexis wasn’t actually with him so he didn’t have to pretend not to be glad she was so excited.

He left work Friday afternoon as planned, running into traffic pretty quickly, but the lessening of the chill inside him as he headed out of New York ensured that nothing could make him entirely regret his decision.

Several hours later, he finally made it to the address he’d been given, a decently large house just outside his parent’s city, petite by comparison to the old Rose mansion, but still sizeable. His headlights illuminated landscaped paths and tall trees as he followed the driveway down beside the house, eventually ending in a small lot next to a spacious back porch that seemed to be crying for some flowers and a sitting area.

A door opened and several figures exited to meet him.

“David! I’m so glad you came up!” Alexis reached him first and pulled him into a hug.

“I really am pleased you’re here, David,” their mother said with a loose embrace. “I need your eye for arranging the terrace. Alexis has been no help at all.”

His sister shot their mother a glare.

“No fighting tonight, you two,” David’s father intervened, taking David’s bag and clapping him on the back. “Nice to have you home, son.”

Even with his mother and Alexis trading snide comments as they walked onto said terrace, David had never received such a warm welcome from his family.

His mother took him on a tour of the house while Alexis followed along beside him and provided commentary in his ear before they left for a late dinner at a locally sourced restaurant that David loved instantly.

“We tried this place months ago when we first moved to the new house,” his mother explained gesturing around. “And we just _knew_ we’d have to take you when you were back in town.”

David hid his smile behind a menu.

Conversation flowed, the food was delicious, and David practically collapsed on his bed when they got home. His mom and Alexis had decorated the room for him. It wasn’t quite right, but it was sweet regardless. Just the thought of that made him smile as he fell asleep.

David woke up late but in time for brunch with his mother that he’d been missing more than he realized. She, naturally, used the opportunity to get David’s opinion on the terrace, and he helped her work through a design with flowers and seating and a water feature. His mother kept fixating on the terrace as the reason she was glad David was back, but she had saved up so much gossip to share with him in person that he knew that she had actually missed him.

Back at the house, his father asked him about his job and his apartment and got entirely too proud when he discovered that David had filled out his own tax forms earlier that year.

David felt a little proud himself that his father, for once, wasn’t exasperated by some apparent financial misunderstanding of his.

The one person David didn’t see at all was Alexis. She’d taken food into her room at lunch and promised to come out for dinner before shutting her door.

Neither of their parents seemed to pay her absence much mind, but David was confused. Alexis had never been one to hole up in her bedroom. If she disappeared, it was more likely to find her overseas than in the house.

Alexis did, as promised, come out for dinner, which was again lovely, though she seemed preoccupied and once they got home, she disappeared into her room again.

So David, trained well from their years living in the same room at the motel, decided enough was enough and barged into her room, ignoring the closed door.

“Ugh, David. Knock much?” Alexis glared at him.

David hadn’t been sure what he would find in Alexis’s room… but it wasn’t this.

There were books strewn across her desk and stacks of papers covered in highlighter. Alexis herself sat in the middle of them, a pencil in her hand as though she was about to start writing.

David stared at her for a moment. “Um, what’s going on _here_?”

Alexis sighed angrily, standing up and shutting the door behind David. “I’m studying, okay?”

“Uh, no? Studying what?” David asked, more confused than ever.

Alexis sat down on the bed, and David followed suit without invitation.

“So remember how I went to that boarding school in Switzerland for the end of high school?”

David nodded slowly.

“Well, I didn’t actually, technically ‘finish’ high school. I kind of skipped my last semester.”

David stared at her. “I was _at_ your graduation.”

Alexis shrugged. “I wasn’t.”

“Oh my _God_.”

“Okay,” Alexis stopped him before he could spiral too much. “But Ted had been talking about me taking some community college courses before we left, and once we got here I thought that maybe that would be like a good thing for me… but you need your high school diploma to apply… and I don’t have one.”

“So you decided to buy out a library in protest?” David replied, gesturing at the entirely too many books sitting out all over Alexis’s room.

Alexis rolled her eyes. “No. I found a class for adults to get their like high school equivalency or whatever, so I’ve been doing that for months now, and my exams are this week. And like I’m glad you came up this weekend, but I just need to pass them, so I just have to study a lot.”

David stared at his sister. He was still a little annoyed about the high school graduation he’d been forced to sit through, but mostly he was impressed.

“Yeah, and then if I pass, I think I’ll take some college classes on like PR and marketing and that kind of stuff,” Alexis said, clearly trying to keep things casual when David didn’t reply. “I think I’d be good at that.”

David gave his sister a small smile. “Yeah you would be.” He looked around the room again. Alexis was _serious_ about this. More serious than she’d ever been in her life maybe. He turned back to his sister. “So Mom and Dad don’t know?”

Alexis shook her head. “I’ll tell them if I start taking college classes. Mom will complain about graduation and Dad will talk about paying for school and try to pick out what I should take, so I wanted to save myself from that until I actually know if I _can_ take them.”

“You could have told me,” David said quietly.

Alexis shrugged. “I would have next week if I pass my exams. I just didn’t want to have anyone else be disappointed in me if I fail them.”

David laid his hand on top of his sister’s. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re really brave to be doing this by yourself.”

Alexis set her other hand on top of his. “Thank you, David.”

“So this is why you were being weird when you were in New York,” David said as he stood up.

Alexis narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean I was being weird? Do you mean that day I said I had lunch with Bethany? I actually had to take a quiz, but I didn’t want to do it at the apartment.”

David shrugged. “Well, yes, that makes more sense now, but I more meant that you just seemed like preoccupied and upset maybe. You must have just been focused on school.”

“Yeah, that must have been it.” Alexis didn’t meet his eyes as she spoke.

David stared hard at her but decided that he’d already pried enough information out of his sister for one night.

“Well good luck studying tonight, but you’re taking a break tomorrow,” he called as he left the room.

Alexis smiled up at him, though something still seemed off. “Okay, David.”

Alexis did take the next day off from studying to spend time with David, but no matter where they were, David could practically feel nervous energy flowing off of her. He wanted to assume she was worried about her exams, but that didn’t seem quite right.

That night, David was repacking his bag, setting out clothes for the morning so he could leave early enough to make it back to New York for work in the afternoon, when Alexis, in an imitation of David the night before, threw open his door and collapsed onto his bed.

“Can I help you with something?” David said slowly as he stood up from his suitcase.

Alexis didn’t reply.

David sat down on the corner of the bed warily. With Alexis at the head of the bed and David at the foot, the distance between them felt a lot like they were back at the motel. It felt nice to have that again for a moment. Their close proximity had sometimes been stifling, but David had found it increasingly comforting the longer they’d stayed in town.

“Have you ever felt warm, David?” Alexis asked suddenly.

David blinked at her, his sister rendering him speechless for the second time that weekend. He and Alexis had never talked about this before. Not even during the two years they had shared a bedroom.

“I mean that week we spent in Turks and Caicos-”

“David, you _know_ that’s not what I meant,” Alexis cut him off. “I meant like _soulmate_ warm.” She whispered the word like it was taboo.

David exhaled and then shook his head. “I’ve felt like not-cold before, but I’ve never been warm.”

Alexis returned her gaze to the ceiling.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“Um, have you?” David finally asked, hesitant.

Alexis didn’t look at him, but slowly she nodded.

“Wait really?” David’s eyes went wide. “Here?”

Alexis shook her head and finally met his eyes. “In Schitt’s Creek.”

“Your _soulmate_ lived in Schitt’s Creek?”

Alexis nodded again.

“Oh my God, was it Mutt? I know you said you had some weird connection thing when you broke up, but like… Mutt?”

Alexis let out a quiet laugh as she sat up. “No, it wasn’t Mutt.”

“But it can’t have been Ted. You broke up with him twice!”

“I didn’t know he was my soulmate then,” Alexis said quietly.

David stared at her incredulously. “You didn’t _know_? You were together for months! You spent like half your time in his apartment.”

“It’s not all about physical closeness, David!” Alexis shot back defensively. “I didn’t know he was my soulmate then because I wasn’t like open to him or whatever. I felt like _something_ but I didn’t know if it was from Ted or from Mutt or from someone else, and it wasn’t until we started working together that I actually started to realize what it was.”

“Does Ted know?” David asked, still shocked by this revelation.

Alexis looked down at her lap. “You saw how awkward he was when he came to say goodbye. I’m sure he knows.”

“Why are you only telling me this now?”

“Ugh, David!” Alexis ran her hands through her hair nervously “Like Ted and I were only started to get closer when I started working for him so we didn’t have time for anything to happen, and I wasn’t going to like broadcast to anyone that Ted was my soulmate before I told him you know? But then we moved and I thought I could just get over it like I’ve gotten over it with like a ton of other guys and stuff, but it’s been really hard and then last night you were saying I was weird in New York and you blamed it on school, but it was really just about how seeing you reminds me of being back in Schitt’s Creek and how much I miss Ted and how much I miss like not feeling like I’m freezing literally _all_ the time.” She stopped to take a breath.

She sighed and started again, quieter and slower this time. “Sometimes I just want to leave here and go back to Schitt’s Creek and just stay there. I think I was happier there. Or at least I could have been happier there.”

David didn’t know quite what to say. That was exactly how he felt. There was a potential for something in Schitt’s Creek that didn’t exist in New York. He was missing something out here, and for months now he couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever it was was back in that ridiculous little town in the middle of nowhere.

“Well, why don’t we go back?” David found himself saying.

“What?” Alexis was staring at him, confusion all over her face.

“Just for like a weekend or something, after your exams,” David explained as he thought it through to himself. “You can see Ted and figure out what your next step with him should be, and I can see Stevie or whatever.”

“You’d do that for me?” she asked seriously.

“Yeah, Alexis. Of course,” he replied honestly. He’d done much about as much for his sister even when she had cared for him much less.

“Aw thank you. David!” Alexis slid over on the bed so she could hug her brother. “I don’t think I could go back there on my own.”

David hugged her back. He wasn’t sure if he was making the right choice going back to Schitt’s Creek. He had a life in New York. Alexis had a life here. Sometimes it really was better to move on.

But he remembered the sad look on Alexis’s face when he dropped her off at the airport and how nervous and worried she’d been all day, and he decided this was the right call. Alexis needed closure, at the very least, and maybe she could even find some happiness.

As for David, spending time with Stevie would make the trip worthwhile enough, but the prospect of a few days where he didn’t feel completely frozen inside was definitely something else to look forward to.


	4. Thaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the really sweet comments on this. I'm so glad you guys are liking it so far!
> 
> We're finally heading back to Schitt's Creek, so we'll see how that goes ;)
> 
> Enjoy!

David left his parents’ house the next morning mostly confident in his proposal to Alexis to go back and visit Schitt’s Creek. He could tell his sister was still anxious about her exams that week, but she seemed less weighed down than she had been before. David was glad to see her smile, and he couldn’t have pretended he wasn’t excited at the prospect of seeing Stevie after months apart.

The drive back to New York, however, provided David with ample time to rethink his plan. Doubts floated through his mind. What if Ted wouldn’t take Alexis back? What if Alexis realized she didn’t want to be with Ted after all, and she ended up more miserable than before? What if David had to spend the entire weekend being an awkward third wheel to his sister and a guy that David, if he was being honest, didn’t really know all that well? That one was a little more selfish, he knew, but it was still a fair concern.

And that didn’t even cover all the non-Ted-and-Alexis worries he had. David’s trip home hadn’t made him miss New York; in fact, it had made him more homesick than he’d been before. Only now he wasn’t sure where his home was supposed to be. Maybe Schitt’s Creek had the answer… or maybe it didn’t, and David was going to end up even more lost than he already felt.

And, of course, there was the matter of _his_ soulmate. Alexis actually finding hers suddenly made the prospect of David meeting his soulmate possible. The last place he had felt anything had been in Schitt’s Creek, so going back had to be the place to start. The thought was both exciting and terrifying.

David resisted the urge to text Alexis for the entire week. He didn’t need to distract her from studying or make her second guess their decision to take their trip. He was doing enough second guessing for both of them.

He had gotten permission from his boss to take a long weekend starting the Thursday the week after Alexis’s last exam, but their conversation had also brought up the end of David’s contract and the new one he needed to sign to keep his job after he and Alexis’s trip. The idea made David pause for a moment. Certainly, he liked his job, and he would be content to keep working there as long as he lived in New York, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t where his life was supposed to be.

But David knew it wasn’t rational to base life decisions on weird feelings, so he signed the contract and ignored the chill that went through him as he did.

David’s phone rang Friday night, and he picked it up immediately.

“David! I passed!” Alexis nearly shouted at him.

“That’s great, Alexis!” David replied, a smile spreading across his face.

“I really wasn’t sure if I could do it, but I actually did!” Alexis’s volume had not decreased.

“I know you’re excited, but you’re hurting my ears.”

“Ugh, David, don’t be mean,” Alexis complained, though more quietly.

“So we’re good for next weekend then?” David asked, trying to be casual.

Alexis didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Alexis?”

“Sorry, I’ve just been in my head about it all week, but I think yes?”

David felt a twinge of regret for bringing Alexis down when she was celebrating, but he needed to be sure that this was actually happening, for his own metal health.

“It’ll be good for you,” David said with as much confidence as he could muster.

Alexis sighed. “You’re right. You’re definitely right. It’ll be good for me.” David knew Alexis’s self-pep talks well.

“It’ll be good for both of us,” she added, going further than David had expected.“Don’t think I haven’t noticed how weird _you’ve_ been since we left.”

David started at her comment. “Me? I’m fine. You were here a couple months ago complimenting my apartment and hanging out with my work friends. I’m just coming for you and to see Stevie.”

Alexis laughed almost sadly. “David, I know you. And even if you have your displays to put up or coworkers to hang out with, you don’t fit in in New York anymore. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we were meant for somewhere different.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” David snapped defensively, in spite of the sinking feeling in his stomach that told him that Alexis was exactly right. He didn’t fit in in New York. But, unlike Alexis, he had no idea if there _was_ anything waiting for him in Schitt’s Creek.

Maybe he didn’t belong anywhere.

“Whatever, David. Live in denial if you want.” Alexis was clearly rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. “But you’re coming up here and we’re driving to Schitt’s Creek on Thursday and we’re _both_ going to figure things out.”

David let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”

He could almost hear Alexis’s smirk. “Good. Now I’m going to go celebrate passing my tests, and I’ll see you next week!”

“Bye, Alexis.”

David threw his head back dramatically once Alexis hung up. If even _Alexis,_ who had spent the last four months worrying about high school classes and leaving behind her actual soulmate, could see that David wasn’t fitting in New York, then it must be true.

All he could do was hope that Alexis was right and that the trip to Schitt’s Creek would be good for him.

The following Wednesday night found him cursing Alexis as he drove from New York to his parents’ house in the pouring rain after leaving work later than he’d wanted to and hitting traffic. He’d wanted to make it home for maybe a very late dinner, but it was looking like he wasn’t going to get there until at least eleven, if not later. He’d sent Alexis a probably unnecessarily angry text at a gas station (once he was back on the road and the rain had let up a little he had regretted it a little; it wasn’t like Alexis had any control over the weather or the traffic), but she never replied.

David sighed with relief when he finally pulled up on his parent’s street and down their driveway. Someone had left a porch light on, and he could see another light somewhere inside on the main floor.

He grabbed his overnight back, leaving his larger suitcase in the car for the trip the next morning, and hurried inside to avoid the last few raindrops falling around him.

“You made it!” Alexis’s voice greeted him from up the stairs inside the back door. “Come up!”

David shrugged off his lightly damp coat and wiped off his wet shoes, grateful they hadn’t gotten soaked in the rain. He followed Alexis’s voice up the steps to the immaculate and little-used kitchen where she was sitting at the breakfast nook, a wide smile on her face and takeout boxes in front of her.

“I thought you might be hungry,” she offered. “I knew you wanted to be here for dinner.”

David couldn’t help the smile that grew across his face at the sight of food, even leftovers that were likely soggy and nowhere near as good as they would have been at the restaurant. The fact that Alexis had thought of him like that was enough.

“Thank you,” he said with a meaningful smile at his sister before he started opening boxes, all the stress of the trip finally sliding off of him.

Neither of their parents had elected to wait up for David with Alexis, but as the pair retreated to their rooms after David had eaten, their parents’ door opened revealing their father, his usual Ebenezer Scrooge-esque “nightshirt,” who offered a quick greeting to David before going back to bed. David also thought he might have heard a mumbling that was their mother, but none of it was coherent so he decided not to acknowledge it.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” David asked Alexis when they reached her room.

She shrugged for a moment but then nodded. “I think so. Are you?”

David raised his eyebrows. “What do I have to be ready for?”

Alexis shook her head at him and turned into her room, calling out a “goodnight” behind her.

Alexis really had to stop doing that. And besides, how could he be ready for something when he wasn’t even sure what it was?

But that didn’t stop David from worrying as he tried to fall asleep. And when he finally did drift off, his dreams kept leading him back to Schitt’s Creek.

It was almost like the town was calling him home.

David and Alexis left the next morning after a quick breakfast with their parents at a local café. Their father sent them with greetings to Stevie and Roland and Bob if they happened to see them, and their mother added that she did miss the Jazzagals a bit and wouldn’t mind if David and Alexis passed along the sentiment to Jocelyn, Ronnie, or any of the rest of them.

It was the first time in a while that David got the feeling that maybe it wasn’t just he and Alexis who felt like they’d left something behind in Schitt’s Creek.

The drive passed quickly. The skies were clear after the rain the previous night, and Alexis had allowed David to select the music. They traded off driving every couple hours, eventually stopping and grabbing a late lunch in some nondescript diner that reminded David vividly of Café Tropical only without the familiar faces.

As Alexis pulled out of the diner, David suddenly realized that something had changed. It had been so gradual at first that he hadn’t noticed it, but he did now: he wasn’t cold anymore. On the contrary, this might have been the closest to being warm he’d ever been. His breath caught in his throat. He really was getting closer to his soulmate.

“Do you feel any different now that we’re just a couple hours away?” David asked his sister carefully.

Alexis gasped and turned to David, her eyes wide, completely oblivious to the fact that she was driving a car on an actual road.

“Yes! I feel warm again! Like not totally warm, but like just a little bit. I didn’t even notice!”

“Alexis, be careful!”

“Stop worrying, David, you know how good a driver I am.” She did however return her eyes to the road. “Ugh I’ve missed not being cold.” She wiggled a little in her seat, reveling in the feeling.

David felt like doing the same thing himself.

Over the next hour and half, Alexis offered periodic updates about how she was feeling warmer and warmer, but David didn’t need them; he had his own.

As soon as he focused on the feeling, he could sense the small gradual changes that were happening inside him as they approached Schitt’s Creek. The warmth began somewhere deep in chest and spread out from there, the cold lasting longest in his extremities until those too were a comfortable temperature.

 _So_ this _is what being warm really feels like,_ he thought contentedly, sun streaming in through the car windows warming him from the outside and the nearness of his soulmate warming him from the inside.

“Ted must know I’m close by now, right?” Alexis worried as they passed a sign notifying them that they were five miles from Schitt’s Creek.

David suddenly realized that his soulmate, wherever they were, could probably feel him coming too. He wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about that. It was one thing for David to potentially have a soulmate in the vicinity of Schitt’s Creek, but it was quite another for said soulmate to actually _know_ David was their soulmate.

“It’ll be okay, Alexis,” David replied, his voice wavering slightly.

Alexis didn’t seem to notice as she nodded to herself reassuringly.

“Stevie still doesn’t know we’re coming though, right?” she clarified.

David shook his head. “Nope.”

Alexis had decided it would be best not to let anyone know they were coming in case they didn’t actually come or in case word got out to Ted before Alexis figured out what she wanted to do about him. David was on board with the plan entirely because it meant that he got to surprise Stevie. She was going to hate it, and David was excited.

Alexis flashed him a smile as they drove past the Welcome sign, continuing a few more minutes down the road dotted with familiar houses before they finally reached the most familiar sight of all: a run-down looking motel with a few cars parked out in front.

David sighed to himself. It felt a lot like coming home. And this time he wouldn’t have to live here for longer than a few days. He’d missed the town and his friend, but he really loved his new closet space.

Alexis parked, and she and David left the car to go to the main office. The front desk was empty when they arrived, but Alexis tried the bell, even though they both knew well that it had not been fixed in their absence.

“Have Stevie’s customer service skills gotten worse since we were last here?” Alexis whispered to David after they’d been waiting for a minute.

David jabbed his sister in the arm in reply, but before she could complain, Stevie emerged from the back room and stopped in her tracks.

“Okay… you guys did leave, right?” Stevie asked finally, her eyes darting back and forth between David and Alexis as though they might disappear before her eyes.

“Aw, Stevie! We’re back for the weekend to visit, and we thought we’d surprise you!” Alexis said, bounding over and giving the smaller woman a hug.

That seemed to snap Stevie out of her confusion, and her face broke into a smile. “Wow… I really can’t believe you’re here.”

She moved passed Alexis to throw her arms around David.

“I’ve missed you,” she said into his shoulder, her voice shaky.

“Yeah, me too.”

They separated, and Stevie immediately hit him.

“Hey!”

“You could have told me you were coming!” Stevie complained, her smile undercutting her words. “You literally texted me last night.”

David shrugged, his smile widening. “I feel like this was worth it.”

Stevie glared at him, but there was no malice behind it. She shook her head and moved behind the desk to the computer, still grinning.

“So your room’s being rented,” she said, staring at the monitor.

“What?” David stared at his friend. “There can only be like four people staying here, and you put some of them in _our_ room?”

Stevie looked up at him. “Kidding. I’m actually not sure if _anyone_ has stayed in that room since you left. Maybe like one really rowdy family with a bunch of screaming kids.”

“I know you’re messing with me, and I will not stand for it because we drove a very long way to see you today, and I do not deserve it.”

Stevie rolled her eyes and handed the keys very deliberately to Alexis.

“If you ask me nicely, I might help you with your bags,” she added to David.

He made a face at Stevie, but it turned into a smile the second she had turned around to follow Alexis out to the car. He couldn’t believe he’d gone five months without seeing his friend. It had been way too long.

Stevie did help them take their bags into their old room. It really hadn’t changed. David’s bedding wasn’t there, obviously, and his wooden knit chest was gone, sitting alone in his New York apartment. But it all felt so familiar in a way that David really hadn’t expected.

“I like being back here,” Alexis said after a moment, clearly having the same revelation that David was having.

David nodded but didn’t say anything else.

“So.” Alexis clapped her hands and turned to David and Stevie. “We should go into town.”

Stevie slipped out quickly, saying she’d be back after she locked up, leaving David and Alexis to unpack.

“Do you want me to take the bed closer to the door?” Alexis offered so quietly David thought he hadn’t heard her for a moment.

“Really?” David said incredulously. “You want to get murdered first?”

Alexis shrugged. “You drove all this way with me so I can figure stuff out with Ted, so I figured it was the least I could do.”

David stared at her sister, realizing again that she was kinder than he had ever given her credit for, but then he shook his head. “It wouldn’t feel right to sleep in your bed. And besides, Mom and Dad aren’t on the other side of the connecting door anymore, so if someone gets in through there, _you_ get murdered first.”

“Ugh, David.” Alexis turned away from him, but he could see a small smile on her face.

Fifteen minutes later Stevie was back, and the group began to walk into town, the sunset illuminating the path ahead of them.

Stevie was chattier than she had been when they were last here or even than she was whenever David called her. David could tell that she had definitely missed him. The thought made him smile.

Now that they were fully in Schitt’s Creek, the warmth inside David had become a constant. It wasn’t burning, more like a soothing, comforting presence that he’d never had before. His soulmate was somewhere nearby, probably in the town itself, though maybe as far away as Elmdale; he wasn’t quite sure how the temperature thing worked with distance. He’d always heard that you were kind of just supposed to _know_ , but he was realizing on this trip that there were definitely soulmate logistics that were not as cut and dry as he’d been told.

The town center didn’t look much different than it had the last time they were there. The old general store sign was gone and a new one had taken its place, but something about it seemed shabby and temporary.

Other than that, things were the same, and when they trouped into the Café, David found it just as they had left it too. The group was immediately accosted by Twyla who was thrilled to see them and quickly invited Alexis out for drinks that night.

Alexis was happy to see her friend, but David could tell she was preoccupied and just looking for a moment when she could leave.

“Go find him,” David whispered to her finally, quiet enough that Twyla couldn’t hear, though he thought Stevie could. He knew he would have to fill her in on why they were really here later anyway.

Alexis nodded resolutely and said a quick see you later to Stevie and Twyla before hurrying out of the Café.

David and Stevie took up residence at a booth near the back, David trying to avoid too much contact with locals that he didn’t really know who wanted to say hello or send greetings to his parents. He knew it was a matter of time before Roland got wind of the fact that two Roses were in town and came after him, and David wanted to postpone that meeting as long as possible.

As Twyla brought their drinks, David felt something inside him shift, so small he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imaging the warmth inside him building up ever so slightly.

Across the room he watched as a man entered the café. David had never seen him before. He’d seen men _like_ him before certainly, non-designer jeans, button-down shirts, aggressively not-tasteful woven belts. But the lightness on his face as he ordered from Twyla at the counter stuck out to David. David knew he would have remembered a man with a smile like that.

“Oh, Patrick!” Stevie called across the room, surprising David because their literal only goal in taking this back booth was to not be seen by other people.

The man David had been watching at the counter turned at Stevie’s voice and smiled at her in recognition.

Then his gaze shifted to David, and David found himself unable to stop staring.

There was something about him. Something different.

David wasn’t quite sure what it was. All he knew was that he needed to find out.


	5. Warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments and kudos on this, it really means a lot!
> 
> Finally we get to meet Patrick! I hope you guys like it :)
> 
> Enjoy!

The man across the Café broke David’s gaze after a moment, turning to Stevie instead, who was gesturing for him to come over to their booth. The man’s previously cheerful face had grown cloudy at the sight of David. He seemed almost confused.

David felt the same way.

“Patrick, this is David. He’s visiting for a couple days,” Stevie introduced him when the man reached them.

David suddenly remembered Stevie talking about a Patrick, the business guy who had been helping her at the motel. She had of course neglected to mention that he was probably only in his early thirties and not some Ray-like retiree and also that he had a smile that lit up his eyes and made David want to stare at him forever.

Though, in fairness, Stevie probably hadn’t known that part.

David exhaled quickly, trying to shake off whatever this feeling was, looking up at Patrick, David’s features schooled into his best greeting-strangers-at-a-cocktail-party smile. “Hi, David Rose,” he introduced himself, holding out his hand.

Patrick took it and David felt that shifting inside him again, his chest warming up, pieces falling into place. But as soon as he let go, it disappeared, and David wondered again if he’d been imagining things.

Patrick seemed a little unsure himself, but David’s name had brought a bit of a spark back to his eyes. “Oh, _you’re_ David Rose. I’ve heard a few things about you since I got here.”

“All good, I hope,” David replied, still managing his best cocktail party banter.

Patrick shrugged. “Depends how you define good.”

David’s eyes widened at the audacity of the other man, while Stevie across from him broke into a smile.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” David asked, trying not to sound too offended.

Patrick shrugged again. “Just something about stealing Roland’s truck and an ill-advised hunting trip. And an unnecessarily large collection of sweaters. Really, I should have known who you were the second I walked in here.”

David turned at glared at Stevie who was practically beaming behind her water glass. “You told stories about me to an _actual_ stranger?”

“You knew about Patrick,” Stevie defended herself. “He’s been helping me with motel budge stuff ever since you left. So I wouldn’t say _stranger_ , per se.”

“You mentioned him in passing _maybe_ five times.” David shot back. “None of which were descriptions of stories about me that you were telling this person who _I_ don’t know. Did you replace me, Stevie? Is that what this is?” David did his best to keep his words sarcastic, but he was a little wounded by Stevie not mentioning this to him any of the times they’d talked over the last few months.

A hastily covered laugh from outside their booth caused David to turn back to Patrick who was doing his best to look innocent.

“Yes?” David asked him with a glare, giving up any pretense of being nice to this newcomer.

“Well, it’s just that you say you were ‘replaced,’” he used actual air quotes at which David had to physically fight back an eyeroll, “but that would qualify screaming for Stevie to come kill insects as you helping her, so…”

“That was one time!” David cried, waving his hands out for emphasis. “One time!”

“Eh, at least two times,” Stevie corrected.

David glared at her. “Fine. _Two_ times.”

“Well, two times might be two times too many, David,” Patrick interjected, his words serious but his eyes sparkling.

David turned back to the other man and snapped at him instead. “I’m not sure you have a right to an opinion here.”

Patrick put up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I’ll stay out of it.”

“Please do.”

David turned back to Stevie, but not before he witnessed a small smile on Patrick’s face like he was amused by David but not in any mocking way. It would have been almost nice if he hadn’t just spent the last few minutes making fun of David who he had literally just met.

David glared at Stevie who stared right back at him. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” he asked her finally.

Stevie finally broke his gaze and rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry that I shared embarrassing stories about you with someone who you didn’t know. In my defense, I had no idea you were ever going to meet Patrick, and also if I knew you were coming, I would have told him to maybe be more discrete.” She fixed a glare on Patrick instead.

The other man was still looking back and forth between David and Stevie, but his amusement had become a little more remorseful.

“If it helps, Stevie also described you as her best friend,” Patrick offered to David as a sort of olive branch.

That made David pause and turn back to Stevie. “Really?” he asked, his words suddenly sincere.

She looked at the table instead of at him, but eventually she shrugged. “I mean, you _are,_ so.”

David ducked his head to hide his smile. “You’re my best friend too,” he added quietly, not missing Stevie’s smile in return.

“So I’m off the hook then?” Patrick’s voice interrupted them.

David had actually forgotten about him for a moment. “Why are you still here?” he asked, but he couldn’t help the teasing that had come back into his voice.

“Oh, sorry, I thought because I just facilitated this sweet moment that things were okay here, but I know when I’m not needed.” The light in Patrick’s eyes told David he was joking, even as his words seemed serious.

“I _guess_ it’s okay if you stay,” David replied, dragging out his words as though Patrick’s amusing presence was a real hardship for him. “I suppose I should get to know the person my best friend _replaced_ me with.”

Patrick’s face broke into a genuine smile at David’s words. It was similar to the smile that had struck him so suddenly across the Café before Patrick had walked over, but this one was somehow happier, filled with laughter that David could see in Patrick’s eyes.

David found that he liked Patrick’s laughter a lot. That he liked Patrick a lot.

As a friend for Stevie, obviously.

David didn’t want to be replaced, but Patrick didn’t seem malicious, just a little quick to tease, which honestly Stevie needed. Patrick was a good friend for Stevie.

And if David liked making him smile, that was just because he was Stevie’s friend. Obviously.

Before Patrick could reply to David’s fake-half-hearted invitation, a voice broke through the noise of the Café from across the room.

“It can’t be David Rose!”

“Oh no,” David whispered, glancing across from him at Stevie who looked just as concerned as him and then over at Patrick raised his eyebrows at David as though to ask him what was wrong, though his grin told David he knew exactly what was coming. David glared at the other man until Roland Schitt was suddenly in front of David pulling him bodily into a bear hug.

“Oh, I’ve missed you, David,” Roland said into David’s shoulder where his head had ended up, the table positioned awkwardly between them and David’s arms straightjacketed to his sides.

“Yeah, it’s, uh, nice to see you too, Roland,” David replied cautiously. Patrick and Stevie were both cracking up behind the mayor and David mouthed silent pleas for either of them to help him.

Stevie ignored him, naturally, but Patrick, perhaps finally feeling bad for teasing David so much, greeted Roland, making the other man remove his arms from around David and stand up again.

David flashed Patrick a grateful smile as Roland focused on him for a moment before turning back to David.

“You didn’t bring your folks, did you?” Roland asked, looking around as though Johnny and Moira Rose would suddenly appear out of thin air.

“No, just Alexis and me, I’m afraid.”

“Alexis is here too? Oh, I’ll have to tell Jocelyn, and we’ll have you both around for dinner while you’re in town.”

“Oh, that’s really not necessary-” David began to protest, but Roland cut him off.

“Of course it is. We all need to catch up. I’ve barely heard from your dad since you guys skipped town.”

David narrowed his eyes. “You’ve heard from my dad at all?”

Roland laughed slapping David’s shoulder in a manner some might describe as playful but others, including David, would term almost violent. “Of course! We chat a bit every week or so. Maybe it’s every month. Okay it’s been at least twice.”

David raised his eyebrows incredulously. Even twice was two more times than David had expected.

“Well, since I’m here, why don’t we catch up some now,” Roland said, dropping, uninvited into the booth beside Stevie.

“Oh, but shouldn’t we save that for when Alexis and Jocelyn are here?” David asked frantically. If _he_ had to “catch up” with Roland, Alexis had to too. After all, it was her fault that he was here in the first place.

“Nah,” Roland brushed away David’s concerns. “We can just do it all again. Saturday night sound good? How long are you guys here?”

“Oh just for the weekend, but I don’t know what Alexis’s plans are. How about I talk to her and then get back to you?”

“So Saturday night,” Roland replied as though David hadn’t spoken. “I’ll let Jocelyn know. She’ll cook up something special for you kids.”

“Great,” David replied through a grimace.

“There’s so much to tell you,” Roland started. “Bob’s back’s been acting up-”

“Patrick!” David interrupted suddenly, not knowing how he was going to take an interminable conversation with Roland. “Didn’t you want to talk about, uh, the motel or the rest of your job doing… business… stuff?”

Patrick grinned at David, clearly fighting back a laugh, but then turned back to the group as a whole, an apologetic look on his face. “I’m really sorry, but I do have to finish up with work. Lots of ‘business stuff’ to do.” He shot a smirk directly at David. “Good to see you Roland, Stevie. Great to finally meet you, David. I’m sure I’ll see more of you this weekend.”

“I’m sure you will,” David replied, trying out his best betrayed look.

It didn’t appear to work as Patrick winked at him and strolled out with a wave, leaving Stevie and David held captive by an aggressively chatty mayor for the foreseeable future.

It took David and Stevie at least half an hour to get Roland to leave, all of their casual suggestions that they just wanted to have dinner themselves as well as David’s more obvious pleas for Roland to not eat their food, all ignored. It was only a phone call from Jocelyn that finally forced Roland to exit the café to go home for dinner, though David grumbled to Stevie that Roland didn’t need dinner now since he’d already eaten half their food.

David got an extra sandwich to go from Twyla at the counter, and he and Stevie finally left the Café to head back to the motel.

“So what was up with Alexis?” Stevie asked after they’d been walking for a minute.

David wasn’t sure if Alexis would appreciate him sharing her personal business with Stevie, but there was no way he could just pretend that he and Alexis had come to Schitt’s Creek on a whim, so he quickly told his best friend everything.

Stevie was suitably shocked by the revelation that Ted was Alexis’s soulmate and that the primary purpose of their entire trip to Schitt’s Creek had been to let Alexis figure out what she wanted to do about it.

“I guess I just can’t imagine what that must be like for her,” Stevie mused as they reached the motel parking lot. “Even just like _having_ a soulmate you can feel must be so weird.”

David nodded absently, suddenly conscious of how warm he still was. The temperature was comforting even if the knowledge that his soulmate was still nearby made him immediately nervous.

“I wonder if she’s back yet,” he said deflecting any possible attention away from himself and back to his sister as he and Stevie approached he and Alexis’s room.

There was no sign of Alexis in the room, so David sighed and sat down at the table, Stevie across from him, so they could finally catch up without constant interruptions.

It felt just like old times, Stevie making fun of him in her own self-deprecating sort of way, offering new information about her life and the motel in passing as David updated her on New York things and the goings-on of the rest of his family.

“So, Patrick,” David finally brought up, noticing that Stevie had almost deliberately avoided mentioning the other man throughout their conversation.

Stevie shrunk down in her seat a bit. “I’m sorry I told him all about you.”

“No, not that,” David brushed away Stevie’s apology. “We already covered that. Of course you told him all about me. I meant how come you never mentioned you guys were like friends. You only ever said he was helping you with motel stuff.”

“Oh.” Stevie seemed a little less sheepish but still a little reluctant. “I guess I didn’t want you to think I was like making friends without you or something? Like your immediate reaction earlier was that I had replaced you, which is what I was trying to avoid, and I didn’t want you to think that was true when I couldn’t explain it to you.”

David immediately felt bad for making Stevie so nervous.

“Because Patrick’s great, but we really haven’t spent that much time together,” Stevie added quickly. “Honestly, most of our ‘friendship’ or whatever is him looking at hotel spreadsheets, and then sometimes he asks me questions, which is how he ended up finding so much about you. Most of my stories have you in them.”

David smiled to himself at that. “Just as long as we’re clear that you aren’t allowed to replace me.”

Stevie rolled her eyes. “Come on, David. There isn’t anyone on earth who could annoy me as much as you do.”

David stared at her for a moment. “I think I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

Stevie smiled and then looked thoughtful. “You liked him though, right? Patrick, I mean.”

David frowned for a moment. “He was a little forward and a little rude, but he does seem nice deep down. And if I can’t be here to make fun of you, I feel confident that Patrick is capable.”

“I’ve never seen him go after someone so quickly,” Stevie commented with a grin. “He might have joked a bit about my organization skills when we first met, but it took a month or two before he was outright taking me down like that. Honestly, I think today was the most I’ve ever liked Patrick.”

David rolled his eyes but filed the information away to think about later. Really, there were a lot of things David didn’t really understand about Patrick that would need further consideration.

Eventually, David and Stevie were interrupted by an exhausted-looking Alexis, so Stevie took that as her cue to leave, calling out for David to find her the next morning as she exited the room.

Alexis collapsed back on her bed as soon as Stevie left the room, her face inscrutable. She didn’t seem sad exactly, just unsettled. Even more so than she had been back at their parents’ house.

“Well?” David finally said, unable to wait any longer for Alexis to explain what had happened with Ted.

“Ugh David, I’ve had a really long day, and I just don’t think I can right now,” she complained, her eyes still facing the ceiling.

David stared at her, shocked. “We drove all the way out here for you to have you moment with Ted, and now you won’t even tell me how it went? How is that fair?”

“It’s not all about you, David!” Alexis turned away from him to face the back wall of the room.

“So it didn’t go well then?” David suggested hesitantly, sitting down on his bed.

“Ugh David!” Alexis sat up finally. “It didn’t go well, but it didn’t _not_ go well. We talked for a long time, between animals he had to like doctor or whatever, since he had to stay late at the office today, and Ted said he needs some time to think, and I think I do too. So we’re giving each other space tomorrow, and we’ll see each other Saturday. Is that enough?”

David sighed. “I’m sorry, Alexis.”

Alexis shook her head. “It could still be okay. I don’t know. But I’m glad we finally talked about it. It felt nice to say everything out loud to him.” She smiled to herself for a moment.

“So are you back so late because you were talking with Ted this whole time?”

“Oh no,” Alexis clarified. “I went and got dinner and drinks with Twy, remember? So good to catch up. But I left early because I literally am so exhausted.”

Alexis stood up and started getting ready for bed. “How was hanging out with Stevie?” she asked as almost an afterthought as she headed to the bathroom.

“It was good,” David replied honestly. “Also Roland invited you and me to dinner with him and Jocelyn on Saturday night so we have that to look forward to.”

Alexis glared at him. “How did you _not_ get us out of that, David?”

“I tried, Alexis! At least you didn’t have to listen to him talk about Bob’s back and the new microwave that Gwen – literally whoever that is – bought all afternoon. Stevie and I were literally being held captive. Patrick didn’t even try to save us.”

“Who’s Patrick?” Alexis asked absently from within the bathroom.

“Some friend of Stevie’s. He moved here after we left.”

Alexis hummed in reply, closing the bathroom door and leaving David to his thoughts.

Calling Patrick “some friend of Stevie’s” didn’t feel right to him. David knew with some degree of certainty that if his family hadn’t left Schitt’s Creek, he and Patrick would have been friends. Actual, good friends. David could still see Patrick’s amused little smile in his mind. He’d liked it. Really, he’d liked everything about Patrick, unnecessary teasing aside. Even the teasing hadn’t been so bad. And Stevie had said Patrick had only ever teased David like that. David liked that too.

Patrick was a good friend for Stevie. David wasn’t sure why he had to keep repeating statement that to himself. Patrick was Stevie’s friend for when David wasn’t there. That’s all he was.

It wasn’t until after Alexis was asleep and David was finishing getting ready for bed that he remembered the odd feeling he thought he’d had right before he saw Patrick across the Café and then again when he’d shaken Patrick’s hand. He still didn’t know what that was, if there had been actually been anything at all. David wasn’t sure that he hadn’t just imagined the whole thing. He’d only felt warm for about eight hours now; it probably just took some getting used to.

David spent the entire next day with Stevie at the motel, Alexis tagging along, often lost in thought.

After Patrick’s comment about David only helping Stevie by making her take care of bugs for him, David, in defiance of the other man, went out of his way to help Stevie make beds in several rooms that were going to be rented that night and clean a couple others whose occupants had checked out. Stevie rolled her eyes at him, letting David know that she knew he was only doing this because of what Patrick said, but she didn’t argue with the extra help. And Alexis was sitting in the corner offering up her own commentary, so at least someone was taking on David’s usual job.

Stevie had to hang around the office for much of the afternoon waiting for check ins, so David and Alexis stayed with her. Alexis passed the time making suggestions about the website and branding for the motel, which Stevie seemed surprised by but also seemed to appreciate.

“Patrick says that we just need to get more visitors in,” Stevie commented to Alexis, the stress of the weeks before the Roses left the motel coming back into her voice. “But I’m just one person, I don’t know if I can do that. Patrick’s helped with business stuff, but there’s a lot more to this, and I don’t know if I’m cut out for it, you know?” Stevie dropped her eyes and shook her head.

“Hmm,” Alexis looked around the office for a moment. “Let me think about this. I might have a little bit of an idea. But I’ll have to work on it.” She nodded to herself and pulled out her phone.

David raised his eyebrows at Alexis.

“I think this could be a good place to start if I’m going to go into PR and marketing,” Alexis explained, sounding genuinely excited. “I mean I still should like take classes and stuff, but the motel could be like my little pet project.” She booped Stevie’s nose, throwing off the other woman entirely.

David mouthed an apology to his best friend, but they were interrupted by a guest check in, much to David’s gratitude.

The other guests checked in not long after the first, leaving Stevie, David, and Alexis free to go into town for dinner.

As they reached the square, a figure was standing in the middle of the road staring up at the general store.

Patrick.

“Hey Patrick,” Stevie called over to him, and he turned around, a look of concentration on his face suddenly replaced with a wide smile at his friend that grew wider at the sight of David.

“Back again, David Rose,” Patrick greeted him, with the same amused smile from the day before.

“Hi Patrick,” David answered, trying to hide his smile at seeing the other man, especially because he had a sneaking suspicion that Patrick was getting ready to make fun of him.

“I bet you had a really riveting conversation with Roland yesterday.” Patrick’s eyes sparkled as he teased David.

David glared at him. “Thanks so much for helping us out of that one. Stevie and I were trapped with him for like an hour!”

“What could I have done?” Patrick put up his hands to defend himself. “No one can stop Roland once he gets going.”

“That’s so true,” Alexis interrupted David’s faceoff with the other man. “On the very first night we lived here, Roland came into our parent’s room and just wouldn’t leave for like so long. Our dad had to yell at him to get him to go, and then it took weeks for Roland to forgive him, poor thing.” She held out her hand. “Alexis Rose, David’s sister. You must be Patrick. I’ve heard a bit about you.”

“Ah yes, Alexis.” Patrick took her hand with a smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you too.”

“All good, I assume,” Alexis shot one of her flirtiest smiles at him.

“Oh, of course,” Patrick replied easily, glancing over at David and winking as soon as Alexis’s focus had shifted.

David opened his mouth to complain about how much nicer Patrick was being to Alexis than he’d been to him the day before, but a look from Patrick told him he knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

David shook his head angrily eliciting an even wider smile from Patrick.

“So what are you doing out here by your lonesome?” Alexis asked, putting a hand on Patrick’s shoulder.

David noticed that Patrick didn’t react to Alexis’s touch at all. In fact, he seemed entirely immune to Alexis’s light-hearted flirting. The fact made David smile to himself though he didn’t quite know why.

“I’m trying to figure out how to sell this place to new clients,” he explained. “After the old general store closed, a new temporary one came in, but neither of them worked well, so I’m trying to figure out what kind of business would _actually_ succeed here. Or if those two were just horribly misrun, and it isn’t the location’s fault at all.”

“The old general store kept cereal next to mouse traps and cleaning supplies,” David intoned. “Whoever ran it had no sense of design or any idea how to lay out products in a correct way.”

“So what would you do with it?” Patrick asked, turning to David, his words, for once, not teasing but genuine, as though he really did value David’s opinion.

David blinked at the attention, but thought quickly. “Well, ideally, since there are so many craftspeople and artisans and natural goods in this area, I think it would be nice to have a central store selling local products. Something like a farmer’s market, but all under one brand.”

“Oh that’s good, David,” Alexis cut in. “We talked about brands in one of my classes last month, and that’s like a _huge_ thing.”

David shrugged. “I mean or you could just ask that the new store owners keep food away from chemicals. That would work too.”

Patrick stared at David, a small smile growing on his face. “That’s actually a really good idea, David. I mean the local products thing, not the food away from chemicals thing. Though also that… Definitely that.”

David felt himself blushing slightly at the compliment, the warmth in his chest really not helping. “Thanks,” he mumbled glancing up to meet Patrick’s eyes quickly.

“You should come have dinner with us, Patrick,” Stevie interrupted their moment, giving David an odd look before she turned to the other man.

“I’d love to, Stevie, thanks,” Patrick replied with a grin, but his eyes kept flicking back to David.

Twyla greeted the group inside, and they made their way to a booth, David sliding in first, Alexis next to him, and Patrick and Stevie across the table.

Alexis laughed when she and David tried to open their menus at the same time.

“This feels really silly, but I kind of missed these menus when we left here,” Alexis admitted quietly.

Patrick offered a sympathetic smile. “It’s always the little things that mean the most in the end,”

“That was very profound, Patrick,” David said with his eyebrows raised.

“I try,” Patrick replied, that same brightness in his eyes that made David smile almost involuntarily. But then Patrick blinked, and he was normal again. “So what were you all up to today?”

Stevie’s eyes lit up, and she flashed an almost maniacal grin at David.

“Well, I had some rooms to clean, and David was a big help.”

“Oh really?” Patrick grinned over at David as though Christmas had come early. “How many bugs did Stevie have to take care of today?”

“No bugs,” David defended himself. “I helped Stevie change sheets and I,” he shuddered dramatically, “cleaned a sink.”

“Oh wow, a sink, that’s pretty big, David,” Patrick said solemnly, amusement spilling out onto his face.

“It was gross, and I only did it because you made me feel bad yesterday, so-”

“You did it for me?” Patrick interrupted him, his eyes widening with an earnestness that almost seemed real. “I feel so touched.”

“It wasn’t _for_ you,” David corrected immediately. “It was just… because of you.”

“Right. I see the difference.” Patrick was smiling at him again. That small amused one that somehow made David feel happy to be the target of Patrick’s teasing.

“David was actually helpful,” Alexis defended him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him actually clean like anything before today, so that was like a huge step for him.”

“Thanks Alexis,” David silenced his sister through gritted teeth after Alexis’s admission that David had never cleaned anything made Patrick visibly start laughing, though he was trying his best to hide it behind his hand.

“Of course, David,” Alexis replied, missing his annoyance at her entirely. “I’m always here to-”

She stopped abruptly, her focus captured entirely by something by the door.

David followed her gaze and found Ted, still wearing scrubs, just inside the entrance, his eyes locked on Alexis.

She stood up, and Ted walked towards her. She let out a breath as though something inside her had startled her.

“Alexis,” Ted said as he reached her, taking his hands in his.

“Ted,” Alexis replied, his name almost a sigh, a hesitant smile peeking out as she held his hands tighter.

“I don’t need any more time,” he said breathlessly. “You’re my soulmate. And that’s enough, right?”

Alexis nodded her head vigorously. “Yeah it is, Ted. It really is.”

A brilliant smile appeared on Ted’s face, and he pulled Alexis in for a kiss.

David beamed at his sister, together with her soulmate, finally on the same page. He couldn’t know for sure, but if he had to guess he would have said this was probably the happiest Alexis had ever been.

Suddenly David felt that warmth inside him again, the kind that had taken his breath away at the café the day before, the feeling he’d told himself he was imagining.

He definitely wasn’t imagining it now.

David looked away from his sister, trying to steady his breathing, scanning over Stevie who was smiling at Alexis, his gaze finally landing on Patrick.

Who was staring at David.

In the few seconds that their eyes met, David saw something searching in Patrick’s face, an intense concentration that David had never experienced before. It was like Patrick somehow _knew_ what David was feeling inside, and he was trying to figure it out too.

But how could Patrick know that David was currently feeling warmer than he had ever felt in his entire life?

As Patrick looked away to offer his congratulations to Alexis and Ted, the extra warmth inside David dissipated, and he could breathe again.

Like it had been _Patrick_ who had caused the feeling inside David.

Oh.

Oh no.

It seemed David may have found his soulmate in Schitt's Creek too.


	6. Comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for all you're lovely comments on this - I'm so glad you're all liking it so far!
> 
> More Patrick and David in this one, thankfully ;)
> 
> Enjoy!

David was drawn out of his revelation by Alexis grabbing his hand to get him out of the booth.

He blinked, refocusing on his sister as she pulled him into a hug.

“I’m really happy for you, Alexis,” David managed, speaking into her shoulder.

“Thank you, David,” Alexis replied, the widest of smiles on her face as she pulled away, back to Ted, who immediately tucked her into his side.

“Can you stay to eat for a minute, Ted?” Alexis asked her soulmate.

Ted smiled down at her. “Of course, Alexis.”

David offered his seat in the booth ostensibly to be nice to his sister, but really because sitting across from Patrick seemed too dangerous to attempt at the moment. Patrick, for his part, appeared to be very consciously not looking at him as David stole a chair from one of the smaller tables to sit awkwardly on the end of the booth.

“Patrick!” Ted said as he slid into the booth across from the other man. “I didn’t realize you knew Alexis and David.”

“Oh no, I just met Alexis before we came in here, and I only met David yesterday,” Patrick corrected, his eyes flashing over to David momentarily before returning to Ted. “Stevie introduced us.”

“Of course,” Ted replied amiably, a smile on his face that appeared to be permanently etched there.

Twyla quickly took an order from Ted and left them to themselves again.

“So what have you been doing since you left town, Alexis?” Patrick asked conversationally. “I feel like I know a bit more about David than I do about you.” For the first time since Ted and Alexis’s revelation, Patrick shot a teasing smile in David’s direction, which he rolled his eyes at good-naturedly, grateful for the normal interaction between him and Patrick.

“Oh, this and that,” Alexis answered vaguely. “Helping out our parents, visiting this one in New York.” She playfully tapped David’s arm. “And I think I’m going to start taking some college classes.”

“Yeah, Alexis was saying she could help out with marketing at the hotel,” Stevie added.

“Oh, that would be great,” Patrick agreed immediately. “You could really do a lot to help things move along.” He looked back at Alexis. “Does that mean you’ll be sticking around Schitt’s Creek, then?”

Alexis turned to Ted who seemed unsure about Alexis’s answer, but she just smiled at him. “Yeah, I think I will be. As long as Ted will have me.”

“Forever then,” Ted assured her with a lovesick grin on his face.

David exchanged glances with Stevie, both of them making faces at how sickeningly sweet Ted and Alexis were being.

Patrick shot David a reproachful look, prompting David to incline his head at Ted and Alexis, who were now giggling and kissing each other in the booth, trying to convey how justified his reaction was. Patrick cringed a little at Ted and Alexis and then offered David a shrug conceding his point that his sister and her soulmate _were_ being just a bit disgusting.

David smiled back at him, a wordless thank you for the support.

His eyes quickly caught Stevie’s, who was staring at him like she was confused about something, her eyes darting quickly to Patrick and then back to him.

David ignored her.

Mercifully, Twyla brought dinner quickly, which occupied Ted and Alexis and Stevie, though David still made eye contact with Patrick over their food far more often than it would have been if it were just chance.

And it didn’t help that most of what Patrick said had to do with David in some capacity, which meant that David had to jump in to defend himself, which only made Patrick tease him more.

And then there was that smile like Patrick had never seen someone who amused him as much as David did.

David had liked that smile immediately the previous day, but now it meant so much more.

When they all had finished, Alexis and Ted left so Ted could get changed out of his scrubs, with Alexis calling behind her to their table and to Twyla that they were getting drinks later and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“I hope Alexis won’t actually mind if I skip going out tonight,” Patrick said once David’s sister had disappeared. “I was planning on hiking early tomorrow morning, so I don’t think a night of drinking is the best choice for me.”

“Oh, you hike?” David asked, unable to resist the opportunity Patrick had left him, as he slid into Alexis’s vacated side of the booth.

“I do,” Patrick replied a hint of amusement in his eyes as though he was interested to see where David was going with this.

“Ah.”

“Is there something wrong with hiking, David? I do recall a story about you _hunting_ which I think is probably worse than hiking in your book.”

“Oh God, do you _hunt_ too?” David stared at the other man, horrified.

But Patrick just laughed. “No, I don’t hunt, David. But I do hike. You’d like it, actually. Or you’d like the view at the top, which almost makes it worth it.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.”

David was startled by the warmth in Patrick’s voice. He wasn’t teasing David anymore. Instead, his words were genuine. Kind.

“Maybe I could take you sometime,” Patrick offered softly. “When you come back here to visit Alexis.”

“Yeah… maybe we could do that.” David had never had any desire to go hiking, but something about hiking with _Patrick_ was different. Patrick’s offer felt so much bigger than hiking. And from the tentative excitement in Patrick’s eyes at David’s hesitant assent, David thought that Patrick felt the same way.

“You’ll come out tonight, Twyla, right?” Stevie’s voice interrupted the moment between David and Patrick.

Twyla replied that she would be coming but she had to do something for her mom and her mom’s boyfriend or something before she met up with them.

David didn’t exactly pay attention to what Twyla was saying, and neither did Stevie who had very clearly caught on to the fact that something was happening between David and Patrick and was trying to silently get information out of David.

David couldn’t do anything but stare bewilderedly back at his best friend. Literally if he actually understood what was happening himself, he would have gladly explained it to Stevie.

“Well, we should go get ready then, right David?” Stevie said pointedly.

“Yeah. I guess we should,” David replied reluctantly, knowing Stevie was going to grill him the second they were out of earshot of Patrick.

The group stood up and made their way to the door, waving at Twyla as they exited.

“Tell Alexis and Ted congratulations from me and that I wish I could be there,” Patrick said as they separated outside the Café. “And I guess I’ll see you again?” He seemed a little unsure as he looked at David.

“Well, we keep running into you, so I guess I probably will,” David replied, with a small smile.

Patrick smiled back, said goodbye to Stevie, and left them.

David didn’t say anything as he and Stevie started walking back to the motel. He knew he didn’t have long to wait before she started asking him questions.

“Okay David, what was that?” Stevie said finally, clearly unable to hold back any longer. “Is something going on between you and Patrick?”

David shrugged. “You’ve literally been there for every interaction I’ve had with him. I don’t think there’s anything.” David didn’t even sound convincing to himself with that lie.

Stevie stared hard at him. “There’s something you’re not telling me, David. I know you.”

David just shook his head. “There’s literally nothing. Just leave it.”

“Fine,” Stevie acquiesced. “But if we end up spending time with him tomorrow, things better be way less weird. I felt like I was third-wheeling you two pretty hard for most of dinner somehow, and I wasn’t really a fan of that.”

“Sorry, Stevie,” David apologized quickly. “I just feel like I need to defend myself when he makes fun of me, which could, I suppose, lead to you feeling like you aren’t part of the conversation.”

Stevie rolled her eyes but a small smile reappeared on her face, and the rest of their walk back to the motel passed in a much lighter fashion.

Going out for drinks turned about to be a lot of fun, aggressively adorable Alexis and Ted aside. David did end up taking charge of drunk Stevie and drunk Twyla for an hour or so, but they both sobered up enough by the time they left the bar that it wasn’t a problem.

By 1 AM David was in bed at the motel alone, Alexis off with Ted. His room felt lonely without her in the next bed and without his parents in the next room.

He thought of his sister’s smile when Ted said that all that mattered was that they were soulmates. It seemed so simple, but that smile had only come after months of Alexis realizing Ted was her soulmate, missing him when she left, and then actively deciding to come back to him. Having a soulmate wasn’t as simple as everyone made it out to be.

David wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

He’d gotten used to being warm here in Schitt’s Creek so quickly. He loved the feeling. It was comfortable. Warm and toasty, that’s how Adelina had described it to him when he was little. He finally knew how that felt. Well, he wasn’t quite toasty, but close enough.

As soon as he left on Sunday, he would be cold again. No matter what he did, the only way David could be warm was to stay in Schitt’s Creek.

He thought again of all the heartbreak Alexis had experienced over the last couple years, even just over the past few months. Having a soulmate meant making himself emotionally vulnerable in a way he had never been before. There would be another person in the world who would feel him. Another person in the world who he was expected to share himself with.

And that person, in all likelihood, was Patrick.

Having Patrick as his soulmate wasn’t the worst option in the world. Far from it, actually. He was kind and funny, and he made David laugh. He had been helpful to Stevie, and he had been so sweet to Alexis. If he were being honest with himself, David already liked Patrick. Stevie had been right when she’d complained about them flirting for most of dinner, but David _wanted_ to flirt with Patrick. Like _really_ wanted to. He wanted to tease him about his jeans and tell him about his work in New York just to see that look of respect or even pride in Patrick’s eyes that he’d had when David had given his idea for the town general store.

David could see himself liking Patrick for a long time. David already thought about how Patrick’s eyes sparkled when he teased David more than he should have thought about anyone’s eyes that he had just met, even before he realized he was his soulmate. David had never liked a genuinely nice person like Patrick before. It was new… but it felt right.

But even with someone as good as Patrick, David wasn’t sure he was prepared for whatever having a soulmate meant. There would almost certainly be pain and heartbreak when something inevitably happened, and David didn’t think he could take it. He could flirt and tease and hide his smile behind Café menus, but David wasn’t ready for the hard stuff, for everything that made Alexis break down the second she had said goodbye to Ted. 

And of course who knew if Patrick even _wanted_ David as his soulmate. Any other man David had ever met who looked like Patrick had been definitively straight, and, though David knew better than anyone how deceiving stereotypes can be, he also knew without a doubt that he was not the type of person Patrick had expected to be his soulmate. The other man had taken to teasing David almost immediately, but that didn’t mean he wanted a relationship with David. David was leaving in two days; they couldn’t have a real relationship even if Patrick wanted to.

David had hoped that coming to Schitt’s Creek would give him answers about where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing, but this trip had just made things more confusing. Alexis had been so much more ready for this than he was. She’d known what was coming; he’s been blindsided by the whole thing.

David didn’t sleep well at all that night, images of Patrick grinning at him across the booth at the Café and memories of the feeling David had had when Patrick looked at him haunting his thoughts whenever he woke up.

When he finally got up to meet Stevie, who had in some apparent moment of clairvoyance gotten him coffee, he felt more like a zombie than a real person.

Stevie clearly sensed his bad mood as soon as she handed over the coffee and he mumbled a thank you in return, so she let him be.

Eventually, Stevie asked if he wanted to go with her to Elmdale for the afternoon so she could pick up stuff for the motel and fill out some paperwork at the town hall that Patrick had apparently insisted she take care of.

His brain had restarted at Patrick’s name, but David had agreed to go with Stevie. It was something to do that wasn’t sitting around and thinking about his soulmate. He needed that.

David felt the warmth leaving him just a little bit as they drove out of Schitt’s Creek, but most of it stayed since they were still close by. David wasn’t sure if he was comforted or distressed by the thought.

He and Stevie were able to have a late lunch at a restaurant that wasn’t the café before they went to pick up some cleaning supplies and, to David’s surprise, some new towels that Stevie had ordered.

“This was a Patrick suggestion actually,” Stevie explained with a shrug. “He said we should show that we’re responsive to guest complaints. And a lot of our worst reviews focus on the quality of the towels.”

“Literally I’ve been saying you need new towels for _years_ , but only after business guy Patrick comes in do you actually buy them, so that’s a fun thing for me to know.” David raised his eyebrows at her incredulously. “And also, in fairness to you, I would credit my mother with at least half of your bad towel reviews.”

“Oh, I did explain that to him, but he still said it was a good business move.”

“Also it’s really nice of you to get these literally _right_ as I am leaving town.”

Stevie shrugged as she loaded the towels into the trunk of her car. “That’s what you get when you don’t tell me you’re coming.”

David rolled his eyes but didn’t argue the point since Stevie was technically right.

“So, I just have to go to town hall. Do you want to just meet at the little coffee shop down by where the Blouse Barn used to be?”

“Yeah, sure,” David replied, grateful his friend wasn’t making him wait with her at the Elmdale town hall. He was already exhausted, and he was pretty sure that would have killed him.

Stevie nodded at him and headed down the street one way, leaving David to go the other.

He knew this section of Elmdale well after working here for months. The walk up the street was one he’d done many times.

Eventually he reached an almost familiar storefront. The Blouse Barn had become some sort of used book shop in David’s absence. He wasn’t sure he had a lot of faith in a store like that staying open for long in Elmdale, but the armchair in the window did look kind of cozy.

In the back of his mind, David registered that he was getting warmer, just slightly, but before he could become fully cognizant of the fact, a voice interrupted his thoughts.

“You did say we keep running into each other.”

David whirled around immediately and was met with Patrick, his button-down dark blue today and his hands in his pockets. He seemed nervous.

“I did say that,” David said, blinking. “But now I think maybe you’re stalking me?”

Patrick laughed. “Just here for some shopping. After what you said about the general store yesterday, I don’t think I want to buy anything there anymore.”

“In fairness, I haven’t been inside the new general store, so I don’t actually know how things are arranged.”

“There was bleach out next to the produce when I stopped in there yesterday. So maybe it’s _worse_ than the old one.”

David grimaced at Patrick’s description.

“Did you have a nice hike today?” David asked, finding himself almost wishing he had gone with Patrick, just to spend time with him, even though hiking on a Saturday morning sounded like a truly terrible idea.

Patrick smiled immediately, his eyes lighting up, seeming genuinely pleased that David had remembered their conversation from the day before. “I did. It was a really beautiful morning.”

“I slept until 10 and didn’t get out of bed until almost 11, so I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Patrick stifled a laugh behind his hand and then turned to the store they were standing in front of as a way to change the subject. “Are you a fan of old books?”

David shook his head quickly. “No, it’s just I used to work here before I left. It was a clothing store until about six months ago.”

“Oh that’s right,” Patrick replied, clearly searching his memory. “Blouse… Something, right?

“Blouse Barn,” David offered wrinkling his nose. “Really not a good name, but in the end the name was what made us all the money, so I guess I can’t complain.”

Patrick raised his eyebrows curiously. “You want to grab a cup of coffee and tell me that story? You seem like you need coffee.”

David flashed Patrick a small smile. “You would be correct. I also might require a muffin or a scone. Depending on this afternoon’s bakery selection.”

“Oh, well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?” Patrick offered one of those small amused smiles that were rapidly becoming David’s favorites.

The coffee shop fortunately had a variety of baked goods available to go with David’s coffee and Patrick’s tea, so David selected a lemon-cranberry scone that looked particularly good, while Patrick picked out a large chocolate chip muffin.

David went to pay, but Patrick handed his card to the woman behind the counter before he could.

“Consider it a welcome back present, or a goodbye present, whichever you prefer.”

David had to fight hard to ignore tiny chill that went through his chest when Patrick said the word “goodbye.”

The pair took a table by the window, and David told Patrick about his job at the Blouse Barn and the Blouse Barn Australia lawsuit and tried not to be too pleased when he saw how impressed Patrick was by David’s legal acumen and how he had stood up to an actual lawyer and won. David took advantage of Patrick’s newfound good impression of him to steal some of his muffin which was so good that David did eventually end up eating most of it, much to Patrick’s amusement.

Patrick, in turn, talked about the new bookstore that had apparently come to Elmdale at around the same time that the new general store had come to Schitt’s Creek, only the bookstore had been hosting community events and advertising well, so it was doing much better than the new general store that was perhaps a month away from closing.

“They hosted an open mic night last month that was a lot of fun,” Patrick offered as an example.

“Oh no.” David shook his head. “Why would someone _ever_ go to an open mic night, _willingly_? Improv? Slam poetry? Incorrect. So _so_ far from being correct.”

“What about acoustic guitar?” Patrick asked, his eyes sparkling at David.

“Nearly always a bad idea,” David replied without a second thought.

“So there _is_ a chance it’s appropriate?” Patrick clarified.

David sighed. “Perhaps. If the player is actually talented. Though I would guarantee that is _never_ the case at a small-town open mic night.”

“What if I told you that I’d played acoustic guitar at the Elmdale bookstore’s last open mic night? And that I sang a song there too.” Patrick was grinning openly now.

“Honestly, I’m just grateful I wasn’t there and didn’t have to see that.”

“Aw, David. You won’t support me as a singer/songwriter?”

“You’re a songwriter too? Isn’t that too many, um, _talents_ , for one person to have?”

Patrick shrugged nonchalantly. “Someone has to do it all.”

“I suppose they do.” David offered Patrick a grimace that was almost smile-like.

The sight seemed to make Patrick smile more.

David asked Patrick about his job, which he noticed the other man seemed good at but not necessarily passionate about.

“Did you really move here just to work for Ray?” David asked quizzically. A man with Patrick’s talents could have a good job in the city, not that David was complaining about his presence in Schitt’s Creek.

Patrick’s eyes grew clouded at the question. “I needed to get out of my hometown,” he said, the words deliberate like he was trying to avoid sharing too much. “After I… well I ended up moving around a bit for a month or so, but then something felt right about coming out here.” Patrick glanced at David momentarily before ducking his head.

David blinked at Patrick. Had he come to Schitt’s Creek to look for David? Had he felt his soulmate in the direction of the town and come after him, only to find that David already left before Patrick got there?

David didn’t want to know the answer.

“It’s not so bad working for Ray,” Patrick continued, finally looking up at David again, relieving the tension that had come between them. “And it’s been nice to be able to help Stevie out. The general store thing has been a bit of a headache though.”

“Well it isn’t your fault,” David interjected.

Patrick smiled at him at that. “I know, but it _is_ my problem.” He frowned slightly. “I really did like your idea for a locally sourced store though,” he said seriously after a moment. “If the items were sold on consignment, but under the same brand like you were saying, I think it’s a really great model, and definitely the best idea anyone’s had for that space. You really have something there, David.”

David smiled almost shyly. He liked when Patrick said his name. It made him feel special in a way he didn’t entirely understand. “Well, if you find someone who wants to take it on, make sure they give me credit.”

Patrick’s face fell slightly at David’s words, but he nodded. “Yeah, right, of course.”

A silence stretched between them for the first time that afternoon.

“So you work at a department store now, right?” Patrick asked finally.

David nodded immediately, gladly latching onto any conversation topic. “I do. I’m the store brand manager, so I’m in charge of displays and organization, and I do a bit of work with social media and marketing.”

“You must be really good at that,” Patrick commented, his words entirely genuine.

David smiled in spite of himself. “I’m not bad, yes. My boss just had me sign a contract extension, so I must be doing okay.”

Patrick glanced away from him again, seeming preoccupied. “I’ve never been to New York,” he said after a moment, turning back up to David. “What’s it like there?”

“Cold,” David replied without thinking.

David blinked and realized what he’d just said. He was pretty sure Patrick knew he was David’s soulmate, but if New York was cold that meant Schitt’s Creek was warm… and that was tantamount to an admission.

“I mean…” David trailed off in his attempt at rectifying the situation, but the sight of Patrick’s expression stopped him entirely.

Patrick was staring at David with wide eyes, an earnestness in them that took David’s breath away. It was like David was a revelation, like he was the answer to a question that Patrick hadn’t realized he’d asked.

“David,” Patrick began, whispering his name almost like a prayer. “You-”

“Oh, there you are!”

Stevie had arrived, a file folder in her hand, interrupting Patrick entirely.

“Patrick? What are you doing here?”

Patrick blinked at David a few times, his mouth still open, before he shook his head and finally turned to Stevie. “I was just here for some shopping when I ran into David outside the bookstore.”

David was impressed by how casual Patrick was able to sound when just a second before that he had been about to admit something that David knew would have been lifechanging.

Stevie looked between the two men quickly. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Um, no, we’re… nothing,” David stumbled over his words as he stood up too quickly. “Well, it was good running into you, Patrick. I’ve just remembered that Alexis and I agreed to have dinner at Roland’s house tonight, which will undoubtedly be a disaster, but, regardless, we need to get back.”

“Yeah, of course,” Patrick replied, standing himself as he stared at David, the earnestness retreating from his eyes. “That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Good luck.”

“It will not be. At all. But thank you for the encouragement.”

An awkwardness hung over David and Patrick as they wordlessly walked out of the café, Stevie following along behind them seeming more confused than anything.

They ended up on the sidewalk out in front, Patrick clearly heading in the opposite direction from David and Stevie.

“Well I’m leaving tomorrow morning, so I don’t think I’ll see you before I go,” David managed, trying not to feel his heart breaking in his chest. “But it was really nice to meet you this weekend, Patrick.”

Patrick offered a small smile in return. “It was really nice to meet you too, David.” He almost went to extend a hand to him but then seemed to think better of it. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime. We have to go on that hike.”

David shook his head at the other man, but he couldn’t help the smile that Patrick’s words brought to his face. “Goodbye Patrick.”

“Goodbye David. See you later, Stevie.”

“See ya, Patrick,” Stevie said to the man’s retreating back before she turned to David, an expression on her face that David could read clearly as “What the fuck?”

Which was fair.

Stevie waited until they were on the road back to Schitt’s Creek before she finally turned on him. “Literally David, what is going on? Why was Patrick there?”

“As for why he was there,” David began with the easier question first, “he was shopping in Elmdale, and he happened to run into me outside of the old Blouse Barn. Entirely a chance encounter.” David didn’t quite believe that. Maybe Patrick _had_ come to Elmdale to go shopping, but the odds of him actually ending up on the same sidewalk as David were pretty slim. If he had to bet on it, he would guess that Patrick had sought him out on purpose. David was uncomfortable with how happy the thought made him.

“And what did I interrupt in the coffee shop?” Stevie prompted, undeterred.

“Well… um…” David knew he had to come out with it. “I’m basically 100% sure that Patrick’s my soulmate.”

David had never said the words out loud before. They were unfamiliar, but he couldn’t deny how right they felt.

Stevie pulled over abruptly to the side of road.

“You think Patrick is your _soulmate_?” she repeated, her eyes wide and confused as she stared at him.

David nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he is. And he like definitely knows too. So.”

“Oh my God, David.” Stevie stared at him, shaking her head. “Oh my _God_.”

David nodded again. “I know. Oh, I know.”


	7. Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for the lovely comments on this - they all really mean the world to me ;)
> 
> This one's a lot, but I hope you guys like it!
> 
> Enjoy!

Stevie sat silently in the driver’s seat for a minute before she finally pulled back onto the road.

Neither of them said anything.

“How long have you known?” Stevie asked eventually, her voice more even than David thought it was going to be.

“I guess yesterday after Ted and Alexis got together,” David admitted. “But there were a few moments the day we got here that I should have realized were something.”

Stevie narrowed her eyes at him, glancing away from the road for a second. “Aren’t you supposed to be able to feel it? Like feel all warm and whatever?”

David shrugged. “I’ve felt warm ever since I got back in town. But it’s hard to localize it to a specific person.”

“You’ve felt it for _days_ , and you didn’t tell me?” Stevie sounded hurt that he hadn’t shared this with her.

David held his hands up to defend himself. “Look, I didn’t know who it was or if I even wanted a soulmate at all because I have screwed upliterally _every_ relationship I have ever had, and also I live in New York, not Schitt’s Creek, so it doesn’t even matter.” David spoke quickly, staring at the window, deliberately not looking at his best friend, not wanting to see how angry she was at him keeping this from her.

“I’m sorry, David.” Stevie’s words surprised him.

David turned to her, blinking. “What?”

Stevie offered him a sad smile. “I wish you would have told me, but I get why you didn’t. It just sucks.”

David nodded and settling back into his seat feeling relieved. “Yeah, it does.”

“So you said it was hard to localize where the warm feeling or whatever comes from, but then how did you figure out it was Patrick?” Stevie asked cautiously.

So David told her about the Café and shaking Patrick’s hand and making eye contact with him just after Ted kissed Alexis and how he had felt extra warm and somehow _right_ in a way he had never felt before, just for a moment before it disappeared.

Stevie asked him what exactly he meant by feeling “right,” but David didn’t have an answer. It was just how Patrick made him feel.

Stevie didn’t make him clarify any further than that, but she did ask why he thought that Patrick knew. David replied that the warmth was probably enough, but his slip up about New York being cold and Patrick’s reaction to that was a dead giveaway.

“He was about to say something about it when you walked in,” David finished his explanation with a sigh.

Stevie grimaced. “Oops.”

David shook his head. “No, it’s good you came in. As soon as he said it out loud, everything would have been different, and I’m not prepared for that.”

“Is this part of the reason you came back here?” she wondered after a moment. “I know you said it was about Alexis and Ted, but were you trying to find your soulmate too?”

“No, of course not.”

Stevie raised her eyebrows at him for a moment, clearly not convinced by his words.

“Well, I mean for like a month before I left I felt like not-cold, but not warm or anything, so I guess I was hoping at least to not be cold? Or to maybe find out something about what I’m supposed to be doing with my life?” David tried to say the words as offhandedly as possible. “I guess I just didn’t think through what any of that could actually _mean_ in reality.”

Stevie let out a quick laugh. “That’s an understatement.”

“Hey!”

Stevie just smirked at him before looking thoughtful. “Wow, just imagine if your dad had waited like a week or something to sell the town. You really only _just_ missed Patrick.”

“Yeah, I know that, thanks for reminding me,” David grumbled.

Stevie rolled her eyes at him, but her smile was sympathetic. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s really good for you.”

David looked at her sharply.

“Really,” Stevie pressed seriously. “He makes you laugh and he calls you on your bullshit, but in like a cute way. I know you’ve only known him a couple days, but I can already see how much he cares about you.”

David ducked his head to hide the blush he knew was forming on his cheeks.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

David paused for a moment but then nodded. He did like Patrick. He liked him a lot.

Silence stretched between them.

David’s phone started vibrating in his pocket, startling both of them.

It was Alexis.

“So Ted and I just ran into Jocelyn in town and she reminded me that dinner’s at 6:30 tonight,” Alexis began once David answered the phone, “which I had completely forgotten about, and I would have gotten out of it except Ted was there and he’s so cute and polite and he ended up getting himself invited too, so now we’re all going.”

David groaned. He’d only used Roland’s dinner as an excuse to leave Patrick. He’d had every intention of trying to figure out a way out of it, but thanks to Alexis, that hope was gone.

“Sorry, David! But this is your fault in the first place.”

“Is it though? Because it _sounds_ like it’s Ted’s fault.”

“Don’t bring Ted into this! Besides, he said we can all drive over together and if things get weird, he can like fake a vet emergency and get us all out of there, so really he’s helping us.”

“Yeah, so helpful.” David rolled his eyes even if Alexis couldn’t see him.

“Ugh, David. Today’s just been like the _best_ day, so please don’t ruin things. Ted and I have been connecting-”

“Okay, stop please. I do not need to hear anything _at all_ about you and Ted ‘connecting.’”

Stevie grimaced in the driver’s seat, making David smile for a moment.

“Fine, David. But we’re picking you up at the motel before 6:30 so be ready.”

David sighed dramatically. “Okay. But this dinner better not take forever. _I_ have had a very stressful day, and I have to drive the entire way back to our parents’ house tomorrow _by myself_ so I need to decompress and actually have a good night’s sleep.”

“Oh… right,” Alexis actually sounded remorseful.

David figured she hadn’t actually thought about the fact that her staying in Schitt’s Creek meant that David had to make the entire drive back by himself.

“Well we’ll have dinner, and then you saying that you have the drive back tomorrow should get us out of hanging around for too long. Jocelyn can take a hint, even if Roland can’t.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in a couple hours then!”

“Bye, Alexis.”

David hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair again, exhaling deeply. He turned to Stevie. “How would you like to come to dinner at Roland and Jocelyn’s tonight?”

Stevie glanced over at him. “I know that you’re my best friend and that you’re really going through a lot right now, but that is _actually_ too much for you to ask me to do.”

David laughed, feeling especially grateful to have Stevie in his life at that moment. “Yeah, I know.”

Dinner that night actually wasn’t as horrible as David thought it was going to be. Roland _did_ force David to listen to his lengthy description of Bob’s bad leg again, only now with updates, and there were some disturbingly sexually charged moments between Roland and Jocelyn that made David momentarily grateful for his own, more discrete, parents, but all in all it wasn’t bad. Jocelyn was a good cook, and Ted was great at making conversation, which meant David didn’t have to talk nearly as much as he would have otherwise. And after everything with Patrick, David was really grateful to just be able to sit and listen to Alexis ask Jocelyn about the local community college and Roland ask Ted about veterinary procedures (actually that one David was a lot less than happy to have to listen to).

As Alexis had predicted, as soon as David mentioned that he had to drive home the next day, Jocelyn wrapped up some cookies for him and rescued Ted from Roland so the entire group could leave.

“You tell your parents they’re welcome here any time they want to visit,” Jocelyn said to David with a wide smile. “And send Moira love from all the Jazzagals.”

“Oh, I will,” David said awkwardly, trying to protect Jocelyn’s cookies as Roland had pulled him into another hug.

“Get your old man to come back soon, okay?” Roland was almost tearing up. “If Alexis is moving back here, your folks should too.”

“Yeah, well I’ll tell them you miss them,” David replied tactfully as he extricated himself from Roland’s grasp.

Ted and Alexis offered their goodbyes too, and the group got back in their car.

“Oh that wasn’t so painful, was it David?” Alexis turned and asked him from passenger seat as though she hadn’t tried to get out of the dinner herself that morning.

David rolled his eyes but sighed. “It was fine.”

“So when are you taking off tomorrow, David?” Ted asked conversationally.

David shrugged. “Sometime in the morning. We’ll see.”

“Well come by the apartment before you go.”

“Yeah, I will.”

Alexis and Ted stopped at the motel to drop David off and to get the rest of Alexis’s things that she hadn’t brought to Ted’s apartment yet.

“So when are you telling Mom and Dad you aren’t coming back?” David asked in the doorway as Ted loaded her suitcase into his trunk.

“I’ll call them tomorrow when you’re on your way home,” she replied, sounding nervous but determined. “I’m not sure what they’re going to say.”

“They’ll be happy for you,” David replied, trying to be supportive. “Mom might be a little concerned about you living here, but she’s a romantic. And Dad always liked Ted.”

Alexis stared out at her soulmate waiting for her by the car and smiled. “Thanks for coming with me, David.”

“Of course, Alexis.”

Alexis made a move to hug him, but then stopped to stare at him instead. “Are you okay, David?”

David narrowed his eyes at her. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You just don’t seem as happy to be here as you did yesterday.”

“I’m just thinking about the drive home and everything, that’s all,” David quickly made an excuse.

David could see some guilt behind Alexis’s eyes, but she didn’t say anything else, pulling him into a hug finally and then hurrying over to Ted.David shut the door, glad to finally be alone, and stared out at the hotel room that he was leaving once again. He wished he could be as brave as Alexis and decide to stay. Forget about New York and his job and go find Patrick and spend the rest of his life here with his soulmate.

But he wasn’t brave. Patrick deserved better than him for a soulmate.

David shook his head and started to pack up his things just to distract himself from how warm he felt, from how right he had felt sitting across Patrick at that café in Elmdale, from how happy his sister had been staring out at Ted and how he could just as easily be staring at Patrick like that if he let himself.

 **How did the dinner go?** came a text from Stevie as he got ready for bed, the cookies Jocelyn had given him for the drive home already long gone.

 **Not bad. Not the worst dinner I’ve had at Roland’s,** he replied quickly.

**Do you want me to come over?**

David thought for a moment. As much as he wanted to spend more time with Stevie before he left, he didn’t want to talk about Patrick anymore. He just needed to sleep.

 **No, it’s okay,** he finally sent. **I’ll see you tomorrow morning.**

**Okay. Night, David.**

**Night, Stevie.**

David was exhausted from everything that day when he finally slipped into his bed for the last time, but he once again found himself sentenced to a night of tossing and turning, sleeping for a couple hours and before waking up and remembering that he was leaving and, worse, what he was leaving behind.

Eventually he got up earlier than he’d planned, realizing that the prospect of a decent night’s sleep was impossible. He felt a lot like he had on the morning that his family had left Schitt’s Creek months before. But it was worse this time. Definitely worse.

David showered and got ready and found Stevie waiting for him in the main office with coffee again and a muffin that David ate quickly despite the fact that it reminded him strongly of the muffin he had stolen from Patrick the previous day.

“You really think you’re okay to drive the whole way back?” Stevie asked him, clearly concerned. “You could skip another day of work if you had to.”

David shot her a look. “I’m not you, I can’t just not show up whenever it’s convenient for me.”

“Ouch, I’m regretting buying you baked goods this morning.”

“Well if you offered a continental breakfast, I wouldn’t have to depend on you for food.”

“A continental breakfast, that was another of Patrick’s….” Stevie trailed off quickly.

David rolled his eyes at her. “You can mention Patrick, I won’t break. I’ve been involved in a lot of relationships that ended really horribly, and since this wasn’t _actually_ a relationship, I think I’ll be okay.”

Stevie raised her eyebrows disbelieving, but she didn’t fight him.

“Okay, I’ll go say goodbye to Alexis, and then I’ll come by before I actually leave, okay?”

Stevie nodded, but as David turned to walk out of the office, Stevie’s voice stopped him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to see Patrick?”

David took a deep breath and shook his head, not turning around. “I can’t do that. It would be too hard.”

He left before Stevie could reply.

He made the walk to Ted’s quickly, casting furtive glances all around as though Patrick was going to materialize out of the bushes. He wasn’t sure if he was afraid that he would see his soulmate or hoping for it.

But regardless, he made it to Ted’s unbothered by anyone, Patrick or otherwise, so he knocked on the door and was quickly ushered inside by Ted.

“Alexis is just finishing up getting ready,” Ted explained. “But have a good trip home, man. I’m really glad you guys came out. Like… _really_ glad.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” David replied with an almost sarcastic smile.

Ted laughed and smiled in the direction of the bedroom where Alexis presumably was. “I missed her so much while you guys were gone. And then when I felt her coming back… it was the best feeling in the world, David. I’ve never been happier.”

David felt the beginnings of tears welling up in his eyes, but he refused to cry today. At least in front of Ted. Alone in his car for the nearly eight-hour drive to his parents’ house, that might be a different story.

“Oh David!” Alexis had finally emerged. “I’m so sad you’re going back by yourself! I mean like not sad that I’m not coming, because, well you know,” she flashed a smile over at Ted who beamed back at her as he slipped out of the room to give the Rose siblings privacy, “but I wish that you didn’t have to go by yourself. You’ll come back soon, right?”

“We’ll see,” was all David could manage. He didn’t want to commit to anything until he had figured out what he really thought about Patrick being his soulmate and if there was anything he wanted to do about it. Aside from crying in his car. That was becoming a more and more likely scenario with each passing moment.

“Okay, well you might have to talk down Mom and Dad when you get home, so sorry about that,” Alexis said quickly, very clearly not sorry. “And I’ll need you to get some of my things together to send to me, since I really didn’t bring a lot of stuff here. I’ll text you what I need, but like you’ll know, you used to send me stuff when I was like trapped in the Middle East or wherever, and you were super good at that, so I’m not worried.”

“Right, sure,” David replied absently.

Alexis narrowed her eyes at him. “You really aren’t okay, are you, David? Like I know you’re sad to leave me and Stevie, but there’s something else bothering you, isn’t there?”

David blinked, trying to get himself out of his own head. “It’s fine, Alexis. Don’t worry about me.”

“But you worried about me before, and since I’m happy now, I think it’s my job to worry about you.”

David exhaled and shook his head. “I’m fine, Alexis. Really. And I’m happy for you.” He offered her a small smile. “I would say you’re lucky to have this, but it wasn’t luck; it was you. You made this happen for yourself.”

Alexis stared at him and then threw her arms around him. “Aw, David. That’s the sweetest thing you ever said to me.”

“And that’s my quota for the year,” David replied as Alexis released him.

His sister slapped him lightly in the arm, but she was still grinning.

“Well, I should go.”

“Ted, come say bye to David!” Alexis called to her soulmate.

Ted appeared back in the entryway and pulled David into a hug that he hadn’t exactly been prepared for, but Alexis’s smile at their embrace made David suffer through discomfort without any comment.

“Come back soon, okay, man?” Ted said with a grin.

David just nodded and turned to his sister. “Please call our parents before I get there because I do not want to show up and have to explain why you aren’t with me.”

Alexis grinned at him and rolled her eyes. “Of course I’ll call them, David. Don’t worry. Have a good drive back.”

David nodded. “Bye, Alexis.”

Alexis smiled back. “Bye, David.”

Mercifully, David didn’t see anyone on his walk back to the motel, aside from Twyla walking into the Café. He was able to return her wave, but he was glad she didn’t stop to talk to him.

David sighed heavily when he reached his room. This was really it. He just had to pack up his things, load up his car, say goodbye to Stevie, and then he was leaving Schitt’s Creek. Again. Only this time he was knowingly leaving his soulmate behind.

David sat down on his bed for a moment. If this was the last time he was going to feel warm for at least a while, maybe forever, he thought he better appreciate it for a minute.

But as he sat there, he felt the warmth inside him grow, ever so slightly, just as it had the previous day.

 _Oh no_.

There was a knock at his door.

David felt his chest tighten. There was only one person who that could be.

He walked to the door slowly, as though the extra couple seconds he took would help him figure out what to do, before he finally opened it.

In front of him stood Patrick, desperation on his face.

“Oh, thank God you’re still here,” Patrick said hurriedly. “I mean, I knew you were still here, but it’s good to actually see you.” He took a breath. “Sorry. This all went so much better in my head.”

“It’s fine,” David said softly. “Um, do you want to come in?”

Patrick hesitated. “If that’s okay?”

David nodded. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

Patrick followed David into the room, and the two men stood awkwardly at the foot of David’s bed for a moment.

“I’ve been in here before,” Patrick said, clearly reaching for something to say while he organized his thoughts. “When I first started helping Stevie she asked me for suggestions about ways to improve the motel, and I asked to see a room, so she took me to this one.” Patrick’s expression grew soft. “Then she told me about her best friend who used to live here. How his name was David and how he stored half his clothes in the room at the end of the motel because he had too many and how had once run away from town and ended up on an Amish farm.” Patrick looked up at David with a wistful sort of smile. “Her David stories always made me laugh. I told her I wished I’d been able to know you. But I never knew just how much that would be true.”

“Yeah, I wish you’d gotten here sooner,” David managed, his eyes falling to the floor.

“Or that you’d stayed,” Patrick added, a hint of emotion bleeding into his words. “Or that you’d stay now.”

“Patrick,” David started, looking back up at the other man. “I can’t.”

“Yeah, I know.” Patrick turned away.

He spoke again after a moment.“You know, six months ago I was engaged. To a woman.”

This was not what David had expected.

“Her name was Rachel,” Patrick continued, his back still to David. “We’d been together since high school. Neither of us had ever felt our soulmates, and Rachel was convinced she didn’t have one, like they’d died or they lived so far away she’d never meet them, that kind of thing, and it had been so long for me that I figured I probably didn’t have one either.” Patrick sighed, staring out through the curtains. “We thought we could make it work together, and we tried for years, but it never did. And even when it wasn’t working, I never had a reason to try anything different because I didn’t have a soulmate. Even the one summer Rachel and I were broken up in college and me and some friends drove around the country trying to find our soulmates, I never felt a single thing.”

“What summer was that now?” David interjected before he could stop himself.

Patrick finally looked at him incredulously, clearly annoyed that David had interrupted his emotional speech for some trivial detail. “I don’t know, David. Like eleven or twelve years ago?”

“Well twelve years ago I was in Prague for half the summer, and eleven years ago was Venice, I think, and also somewhere in the UAE, but that was for Alexis, so-”

“David,” Patrick interrupted his attempt to reconstruct the summers of his twenties. “Can’t you see that it didn’t matter?” Patrick stopped for a second, considering David’s words. “Though I guess that wouldn’t have helped. Prague, really David?”

David shrugged helplessly.

“The _real_ problem,” Patrick continued with a glare to David that was more fond than it had any right to be, “was that I believed I didn’t have a soulmate, and that I certainly hadn’t let myself think about whether or not I was gay. But the night Rachel and I broke up the last time, for good, I started letting myself believe that I actually did have a soulmate and that maybe that soulmate was a guy… that my soulmate actually probably _was_ a guy.” Patrick laughed to himself for a moment, the same almost sad smile on his face, as he stared at the ground.

“And the next morning when I woke up, still believing I had a soulmate and that I needed to find him, that was the first day of my life when I didn’t feel cold. I wasn’t warm, but I wasn’t cold. I hadn’t moved anywhere new, but emotionally everything was different.” Patrick looked up at him again, a nervousness in his eyes. “Did you feel that, David?”

David could only nod. “Yeah, I did.”

Relief spread across Patrick’s face, but only for a moment. “It was the worst feeling in the world when I got cold again all of a sudden a month later, right before I came here.” His eyes were clouded.

“It wasn’t so nice for me either,” David commented bitterly. “And New York was even colder.”

“Yeah, it was,” Patrick replied softly. “It was really cold.”

David took a deep breath. “Look, Patrick. I’m sorry I left before, and I’m sorry I’m leaving again now, but honestly, you’re better off without me. I’m kind of a train wreck, relationship-wise… and also in most other areas of my life, and you seem like you’re really well put together, and I don’t want to ruin that with all of this.” He gestured vaguely to himself. “It was nice getting to know you, and I’m sure I’ll see you around the next time I come back to visit Alexis, but I have to go back to New York which is just going to make us both cold again, so we might as well get used to it.”

David moved passed Patrick to get the door, but Patrick grabbed his arm to stop him.

Instantly, warmth far greater than he had felt so far in Schitt’s Creek, including when Patrick had been staring at him at the Café, spread from the point of contact with Patrick all through his body.

David let out a shuddering breath as he turned back to Patrick who was staring at him openly, his eyes shining with the same earnestness David had seen in them the previous day before Stevie interrupted them.

“David, _please_.” Patrick’s voice broke just enough to make David’s heart clench in his chest. “I know things haven’t been easy for you in the past, but this isn’t like anything that’s ever happened to you before, is it?” He slid his hand down to intertwine David’s fingers with his, sending what felt like small flames shooting along David’s arm.

David shook his head almost unconsciously, his focus on the heat of Patrick’s touch.

Patrick squeezed his hand. “So can’t we try? I want to be with you, David, for as long as you’ll let me. Even before I was sure you were my soulmate, the only thing I did know was that I wanted to see your smile. That little reluctant one that you make when I tease you and you can’t help but think it’s funny.” Patrick smiled up at him affectionately. “I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone. And by some miracle, you’re my soulmate. It just feels right, doesn’t it, David?”

David felt a stronger bolt of warmth run through him at Patrick’s words. That was the first time either of them had said it out loud to the other. He was Patrick’s soulmate.

_Fuck._

David began to panic. Patrick cared about him so much already. It wasn’t right. It _couldn’t_ be right. He needed to stop this before it got too hard.

David removed his hand from Patrick’s, inhaling at the loss of contact as the extra heat abruptly left his body.

Patrick stared at him, hurt and confusion across his face.

“I can’t do this, Patrick,” David spoke deliberately. “We’ve known each other less than four days. Your life is here, mine’s in New York. You say that this is different, but I don’t know if it is. I don’t know if _I’m_ all that different now.” He stopped, preparing himself for what he had to do.

“I can’t be your soulmate, Patrick. I’m sorry.”

As he said the words, all the warmth that was left in David’s chest from Patrick’s presence immediately dissipated leaving him cold once again.

David gasped at the change, but seeing Patrick’s face break apart in front of him was so much worse.

David had done that. He’d hurt a man who had been nothing but kind to him, who wanted to be with him. He’d hurt his soulmate.

“I’m sorry,” David tried again, but Patrick shook his head, steeling his face to hide his pain from David.

“I’m sorry too. Goodbye, David.” Patrick moved past David, but even when their hands brushed in the narrow doorway, David only felt the slightest twinge inside him that disappeared almost instantly.

“Goodbye, Patrick.

As the door closed, David had a sudden memory of Alexis standing by this same door after saying goodbye to her soulmate months before. Only she hadn’t rejected him, she’d just let him go. She could still feel the warmth from Ted, even if she thought she was never going to see him again.

But David couldn’t feel Patrick anymore. He wasn’t coming back.


	8. Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on this - all the support from you guys has really made this so much fun to work on. 
> 
> I also apologize for the aggressively sad ending to last chapter, and I hope I can make it up to you guys... eventually ;)
> 
> Enjoy!

David collapsed onto his bed, but he didn’t start sobbing like Alexis had done all those months ago. He just felt… empty.

It was the opposite of the familiar warmth he’d been enveloped in for the last few days. Even when he’d been worrying about Alexis or trying to wrap his head around the idea of having a soulmate in general (or having that soulmate be Patrick specifically), he’d still had that quiet warmth in his chest, comforting him even unconsciously.

David shivered, burrowing into his sweater. He’d told Patrick they might as well get used to being cold… he hadn’t meant for it to be like this.

There was another knock at the door, but before David could panic, Stevie let herself in, concern in her eyes.

“Was that Patrick I just saw leave?”

David nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“What happened?”

David took a ragged breath. “I don’t feel warm anymore.” He couldn’t manage any more than that.

The tears that had been threatening to spill out of his eyes at Ted’s apartment, finally began flowing down his cheeks. He ducked his head, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.

Stevie inhaled sharply, but she didn’t say a word. She just sat down on the bed next to David and wrapped her arms around him.

David hugged one of her arms into his chest and felt himself begin to cry in earnest.

Stevie didn’t ask for more of an explanation or make any comforting noises, she just stayed there with David until he calmed down enough to speak again.

“He held my hand, and it was like I was burning,” David choked out, the feeling of Patrick’s hand in his embedded permanently into his mind. “But I told him I couldn’t be his soulmate, and then everything just went away.” He wiped tears from his face and blinked up at the ceiling trying to get control of himself. “He’s gone for good. I’m never going to feel him again.”

“You don’t know that, David,” Stevie spoke finally, releasing him, but leaving one arm on his back, a comforting warmth. A friend. His best friend.

David turned to her hopelessly “Even if I ever did get my act together, he would never want to be my soulmate now. He stood in front of me and said how much he liked me and how much he wanted to be my soulmate and I said no. To his face. He hates me, Stevie. He has to.”

Stevie shook her head. “Patrick couldn’t hate anyone.”

“Could you not take his side right now?” David complained, with a level of desperation that would have embarrassed him if he hadn’t already been sobbing. “Can you just be my best friend at least until I leave?”

Stevie looked at him with a sincerity he had never seen on her face before. “I’ll still be your best friend after you leave, David.”

“Good.” David leaned his head against Stevie’s and was grateful to feel her lean hers back.

“I need to go home,” David said after a moment, speaking more to himself than to Stevie. He had to move on. What else could he do?

“Are you sure?”

David nodded, but he didn’t look at his friend as he stood up to go get his bags.

Stevie didn’t argue. She just picked up a suitcase and followed David to his car.

David knew Stevie could be pressing him for more information or trying to get him to stay and work things out, but she wasn’t, and he was grateful. She knew that he needed space and some quiet support.

David missed her already.

When all the bags were stowed in the trunk of the car, David turned and handed his room key back to his best friend.

“Thanks for everything, Stevie.”

“Of course,” she replied immediately. “I know it didn’t end well, but _I’m_ glad you came back at least. Maybe I’ll come visit you next time.”

David laughed. It was nice of Stevie to offer, to leave open the possibility of them seeing each other again without David having to suffer through being cold in Schitt’s Creek with Patrick, but getting to New York from Schitt’s Creek was a lot more trouble than it was worth.

“I’ll text you when I get to my parents’ house and when I get to New York tomorrow,” David promised. “And good luck with Alexis in town without the rest of us.”

Stevie grimaced just to make David laugh.

“She doesn’t know about Patrick or anything, right?” Stevie asked, serious for a moment.

David shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. You won’t tell her, right?”

Stevie looked at him as though to ask if he was joking. “Come on, David.”

“Just checking.” He offered his friend a small smile which she returned.

Stevie hugged him quickly, and he hugged her back before finally getting in his car and leaving Schitt’s Creek once again.

This time the drive out of town wasn’t marked by a rapid descent into cold but instead by a continued chill that worsened only slightly and very gradually as he drove along. His new baseline was almost freezing. It didn’t matter if he was a foot from Patrick or ten thousand miles; he was always going to be cold.

That realization hurt far more than the cold itself.

He cried a little on the drive, but the tears in the motel room with Stevie had helped get a lot of it out his system. Mostly he tried to focus on his music and not think about anything.

Not far down the road from the very sketchy diner where he had stopped for lunch, David felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He swore under his breath as he pulled it out and saw his mother’s name on the screen.

This had to be about Alexis. Or, worse, he would have to be the one to tell them why Alexis wasn’t in the car with him. He sent up a silent plea that Alexis had actually called their parents like she said she was going to.

Regardless, it was better to have this conversation over the phone where he could control it than at their house where he actually had to stay tonight, so he pressed answer and put it on speaker in his lap.

“Hi, Mom,” he said, trying to sound as normal as possible.

“David?” His mother’s telephone speaking voice was always louder than necessary, but this time it felt like she was practically yelling. “Is it true?’

“Is what true?”

“Oh don’t toy with me, David. My heart cannot take it! Is it true that your sister isn’t with you? That you left her behind in that town?”

David sighed. “Well I didn’t _leave her behind_. She chose to stay with her soulmate. I think that’s a pretty important distinction.”

“A mere bagatelle, David!” his mother waved away his correction. “Why did it have to be there? Are there not veterinarians in the city?”

David rolled his eyes. “This sounds like a conversation you should have with Alexis. I’m sure she and Ted wouldn’t be opposed to moving someday.”

“Oh, I do hope so, David. I have missed my bebes this weekend.”

David felt oddly touched. He knew their mother was acting extra sentimental to try to get him to convince Alexis to leave Schitt’s Creek, but there was definitely some seriousness in her words. She genuinely didn’t want Alexis so far away because she missed her. It was sweet really.

“Well, I’ll be home in like four hours or something,” David said, more patiently than before as he tried to read road signs to figure out where exactly he was.

“Do hurry back, David! We must hear all about dear Alexis’s pursuit of her soulmate!”

David wasn’t sure that was a conversation he wanted to have in any kind of detail, but he’d definitely rather wait until he was back so he didn’t have to tell the story to each of his parents separately.

“Right, well I’ll see you then.”

“Oh yes. Goodbye, David!”

“Bye, Mom.”

The next four hours passed in about the same fashion as the beginning of the drive. David listened to music and thought about Alexis and tried not to think about Patrick, until he inevitably ended up thinking about Patrick anyway. Sometimes he tried to distract himself by thinking about Stevie, but that just made him sad for a different reason. It was a vicious cycle which he had no hope of getting out of.

He was relieved when he finally made it back to the city, then to his parent’s street, finally pulling his car into their driveway.

There was no Alexis to greet him when he stepped inside, but when he found his parents in the living room they both greeted him immediately, his mother veering toward overdramatic as she exclaimed about his sister while his father smiled widely and asked about the drive and if Alexis was okay.

“Yeah, she’s fine, Dad, really,” David brushed off his father’s worries. “I wouldn’t have left her there if I didn’t think she knew what she was doing. She and Ted are both really happy.”

“Oh my dear.” His mother took his face into her hands. “One of my progeny all alone in the wilderness with her soulmate and the other on his way back to the big city from which he rarely returns. What are we to do, John?”

David removed his mother’s hand from his face. “You’ll be fine. This is the third time you’ve seen me in the last month. And you’ll see Alexis. Jocelyn said you both are welcome any time you want to visit.”

“How are Roland and Jocelyn?” his father asked with a grin at the thought of his old friends.

“The same as they always are. They had me, Alexis, and Ted over for dinner last night.”

“Oh, that was nice of them.”

David raised his eyebrows at his father who had often complained about dinner invitations from the Schitts.

His dad laughed, clapping him on the shoulder, and then told him to set down his stuff so they could go to dinner.

David texted Stevie from the car on the way to the restaurant to tell her that he’d made it home and that his parents were happy about Alexis and Ted, even if his mom kept dropping hints that she wanted Alexis, and now David too apparently, to live closer to home.

They had never had that closeness as a family before they moved to Schitt’s Creek. David’s father liked having them all under the same roof for their big Christmas party and periodic celebrations throughout the year, but aside from occasional dinners and even rarer group texts, they had all existed by themselves, talking to each other when they had to, often more harshly than needed.

But that feeling of family had stuck with his parents and with him and Alexis even now, months after they’d left. David found himself smiling just a little bit for the first time since Patrick had left him that morning. He couldn’t feel his soulmate’s warmth anymore, but he could feel the love of his family, which was certainly something he’d been missing before the last couple years.

All through dinner his parents asked him about Schitt’s Creek and Twyla and Stevie and the motel. Somewhere in the middle David was hit with a realization that his parents actually _missed_ the town. They probably would have liked to come visit if David and Alexis had invited them. David was glad they hadn’t been there of course, but he was heartened by his mother trying not to smile too widely at the greetings sent from the Jazzagals and his father puzzling over Stevie’s concerns about the motel.

They would have been happy if they’d stayed. Maybe all of them have been happier if they’d stayed. Alexis certainly would have been.

And David would have been too.

But they had new lives now. His mother’s agent had found her a guest role in some tv show that he hadn’t heard of but apparently had some cult following on the internet, and she had gotten back in the charity fundraising circuit in the city, though her events were naturally less upscale than they had been. His father had gotten involved in a small real estate investment project that David didn’t really understand, but his father seemed excited about.

They had all figured out how to make their post-Schitt’s Creek lives, even if they still missed their friends and the closeness they’d had in the town.

Even Alexis had finished high school by herself and eventually determined that the best course of action for her own happiness was going back to Schitt’s Creek.

David had his job and his apartment and some new New York friends… but he hadn’t figured it out. If anything, he was worse off now than he had been when they first left Schitt’s Creek. He wasn’t happy. And he wasn’t brave enough to give up everything for a relationship that might make things better since he knew it inevitably going to blow up in his face.

“David, you haven’t really spoken much about your own trip,” his mother interrupted his thoughts. “Did you have a nice time out in the middle of nowhere?”

David almost rolled his eyes at his mother’s continued insistence on acting like she didn’t like Schitt’s Creek when she clearly had fond memories of the town and cared about its inhabitants.

“Yeah, sure,” David replied with a shrug. “It was good to see Stevie and spend some time with Alexis.” All of that was true. And he definitely didn’t need to go into more detail than that.

“Well that’s good to hear,” his mother said with a small smile. “Alexis had said you’ve seemed a tad bit unsettled since we left town, and she was hoping this trip would help.”

David was simultaneously touched that Alexis had been worried about him enough to mention it to their parents and annoyed that she actually had done so. “I’m fine. Alexis was overreacting.”

“I’m not so sure, son,” his father cut in. “There has been something different about you since we moved away.”

“Can we please stop analyzing me? I told you, I’m fine.”

Both his parents seemed less than convinced by David’s reassurance, but the arrival of a waiter with the check saved him from any more scrutiny.

David excused himself to his room as soon as they got home, saying, accurately, that he’d had a very long day and he had to drive back to New York _and_ work the next day, so he needed to get some sleep.

But David already knew sleep wasn’t an option for him for at least a while.

Once he was alone, he wrapped himself in his warmest blanket and put a rom-com on his computer, but he couldn’t pay attention to any of it. His thoughts were hundreds of miles away with a kind man whose eyes sparkled when David talked to him and who teased David in a way that made him happier than he’d been in months.

David woke up early the next morning – too early - realizing that he’d drifted off somewhere in the middle of the movie after trying and failing not to cry about Patrick.

This felt like a low point. He’d had more than his fair share of rough break ups and embarrassing nights with random people whose names he couldn’t even remember afterward, but crying himself to sleep over a guy he’d only had literally four conversations with was pretty bad, though in an entirely different, and, if David was being honest, entirely worse way.

David wasn’t typically one to seek physical affection, brief hugs in greeting or goodbye aside, but he felt like he could _really_ use a hug right now. Patrick probably gave amazing hugs. David vividly remembered the way just holding his hand had felt. A hug from Patrick would burn him from the inside in the most wonderful way possible.

David buried his head in his pillow to try not to think about it. He was never going to get to touch Patrick again, let alone hug him. He’d be lucky if he ever felt any warmth again at this point.

He lay in bed for another hour, alternating between sleeping and waking up sad and much colder than he should have been, until he finally gave up on the possibility of getting any real sleep. After he showered and repacked his bag, he made his way to the kitchen, wishing Stevie was there with coffee like she had been the last two mornings.

His father nodded at him from the breakfast nook where he was reading the paper with a cup of coffee of his own and a cinnamon roll.

“Did you go get these?” David asked, as he took a cinnamon roll for himself out of a still-warm box on the counter.

His father nodded. “They make them at the bakery where we had breakfast the day you and Alexis left. It’s a bit of a walk, but I like to stop in when I can.”

“Do you miss walking to the Café?” David asked, a bit more sadness in his voice than he would have liked, as he settled down across from his father with his own cup of coffee and what was left of his cinnamon roll.

His father smiled wistfully. “I miss a lot of things, son. But you have to keep moving forward and take what life gives you.”

David thought of Patrick. Life had given the Roses some of their money back, a way out, a fresh start, but none of it accounted for Patrick. “And what if what life gives you doesn’t make you happy?” David asked tentatively.

His father looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, I guess then you keep pushing through until you figure out what _does_ make you happy. And when you find that, to hell with everything else.”

David’s eyes widened for a moment, taken aback by his father’s almost rash statement. The realistic (or pessimistic) part of his brain reminded him quickly that he didn’t know if he _could_ be happy with Patrick. More likely, David would make him miserable and Patrick would leave him, making them both feel worse. At least back in New York he already knew what his life was like. It was predictable. It was creatively fulfilling. So what if he was constantly surrounded by a feeling of being in the wrong place, of missing out on his future? It didn’t matter. Right?

David didn’t know what to say to his father, so he got up and took a second cinnamon roll instead. They really were amazing.

His mother joined them not long after, thanking his father for the cinnamon roll that he had apparently delivered to her in their room. David fought back a smile at how devoted his parents were to each other.

 _It’s because they’re soulmates,_ said a little voice inside David that he immediately and entirely ignored.

Before David left, he helped his mother go through Alexis’s things to determine what she needed immediately sent to her and what could wait until someone went to visit her or Alexis and Ted came out to the city. The whole process took more than an hour, which David knew it would when he told Alexis he would do it out in Schitt’s Creek, but he was still more than a little annoyed by the time the “to send” pile was complete. Luckily, David’s excuse of “I have to work in New York today” was enough to get him out of actually packing things up for his sister.

“You’ll come back soon, won’t you David?” his mother said dramatically as she hugged him goodbye. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you _and_ without Alexis.”

“The same things you always do,” David replied trying not to sound too exasperated. “You used to go months without seeing us.”

His mother touched his cheek almost fondly. “You and I both know things aren’t like that anymore.”

David was so surprised to hear his mother speak so openly that all he could do was nod. He did know that. Things had been different for a while now. They were never going to go back to the way they were.

Thank God.

“Goodbye, son,” his father said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Maybe think about what I said this morning.”

David could only blink at his father. What was with his parents today? It seemed Alexis leaving was making them nostalgic and unexpectedly wise. David didn’t like it.

The trip back to New York was easier than the trip to his parents’ house had been, if only because it was several hours shorter. His parents’ words ran through his head. His father telling him to find what made him happy and ignore everything else. His mother reminding him that things were different now, that he didn’t have to be the person he used to be: that he _shouldn’t_ be the person he used to be.

And of course, Patrick was always in the back of his mind, especially as his arrival back in New York made him feel like he was actually frozen inside.

He had never been this cold before, not ever. He hoped Patrick had a warm sweater to wear instead of his usual button-downs. He was going to need it.

David’s boss and his coworkers were happy to have him back at work after his long weekend, and David was grateful for something to focus on besides his soulmate and how cold he felt.

That week was the most productive David had ever had at work. He came in earlier than he needed to, just to get out of his apartment and his own head, and he stayed as late, or later, than he ever had, even leaving after the night janitor a couple times.

His boss casually mentioned the following Monday that David didn’t need to do extra work even with his contract extension, but David just replied that he just wanted to finish the project he was working on. He didn’t think his boss bought his excuse, but she didn’t press him on it.

David found himself talking to Stevie almost daily, far more often than he had in his first four months in New York. He talked to Alexis now a lot too, and even his parents more than he had before, but conversation with Stevie was guaranteed to be safe and easy, and that was what David really needed. She asked about his work projects and told him about motel and about Alexis’s marketing ideas, leaving Patrick entirely out of the conversation, though David knew he was still there. Alexis had only just signed up for online classes at Elmdale Community College; there was no way she was the one who put together a full marketing budget for the motel.

A Friday two weeks after he’d come back to New York found David calling Stevie on the way back his apartment just so he didn’t have to think for a few minutes.

The entire day had been rough. Alexis had called before work to tell him about how Patrick was helping her with one of the business classes that she’d just started, and she’d gone on for longer than David wanted talking about how helpful Patrick was and how he was such a nice guy and how he’d asked about David and wasn’t that so sweet of him? David had wanted to cry. Kind, sweet, perfect Patrick was helping his sister and asking about him as though David hadn’t broken his heart and ruined his life. It was too much for David.

Work hadn’t made it any better. The project he’d been working on had been completed, quicker than it should have been, leaving David with a couple of light days before he had more work to do. Light days weren’t good. Light days meant he didn’t have anything to focus on, and when David didn’t have anything to focus on, things got kind of dark.

Which meant he’d called Stevie before he even reached his apartment, if only to keep himself from spiraling too much.

“Hey, David,” Stevie answered, her voice sounding much more concerned that normal.

“Hey, Stevie,” he replied, trying not to let the stress of the day bleed into his words. “How are you?” That was Stevie’s cue to talk about herself and distract David.

But Stevie didn’t take the hint today. “I’m okay,” she said simply, pausing for a moment. “Was it really cold in New York today?”

David _had_ felt colder than normal with how awful thinking about Patrick had made him feel, but there was no way Stevie could have known that.

“I mean, it’s always cold,” he answered diplomatically. “Why would you ask that?”

“Um, you just sounded cold,” she said, a tell-tale hesitation in her voice.

David knew a poor excuse when he heard one. “Stevie.”

She groaned. “It’s just that Patrick was here this afternoon for budget stuff, and he just kept shivering even with his coat on, to the point where Alexis asked if he was sick.”

“Oh fuck.” On bad days it sometimes slipped David’s mind that he and Patrick were feeling the same coldness. “Yeah, it was a bad day,” he admitted. “I’m sorry Patrick had to deal with it.”

This was the first time either of them had spoken about Patrick since David had left, and David had to bite back all the questions he had now that Stevie had acknowledged she was still in contact with his soulmate.

“How is he?” David asked, finally succumbing to his own curiosity.

“Honestly, David? He looks miserable. He has ever since you left.”

David was momentarily relieved that Patrick wasn’t doing well either, but then he felt terrible for even a tiny part of him being glad that Patrick hadn’t just gotten over him. Patrick didn’t deserve any of this. He deserved to be nice and warm with some normal soulmate who could be there for him. He deserved better than David.

“He’s too good of a person,” was all David could say. “He’ll get through it and be better off without me.”

“Do you really believe that?” Stevie asked seeming almost hurt by David’s words. “He really likes you, David. Like a lot. He doesn’t mention you much, but I can tell how much he cares about you every time he does.”

“Stevie, just stop. You said you weren’t going to take his side.”

“I’m not, David. I just need you to know that you can fix this. I know you think you can’t, but it doesn’t have to end like this.”

“End? Nothing ever started, Stevie!” David felt himself getting hysterical. “And nothing’s going to! Because even if it ended right now or a month from now or a year, it’s still going to end sometime. And I _cannot_ handle that.”

“How do you know it’ll end, David?” Stevie implored. “This is _Patrick_ we’re talking about. The guy made fun of you for almost the entirety of the first conversation you ever had. He knows what he’s getting into, and he’s ready for it.”

David couldn’t deal with this right now. He’d called Stevie to get away from all of this. He didn’t need to think about Patrick’s teasing or that little amused smile he had that made David’s chest contract.

“I’ve got to go, Stevie,” he lied as he entered his building.

“David-”

“Bye Stevie.” He hung up before she could say anything else.

David wasted no time in collapsing on the sofa after he locked his apartment door behind him.

What had Stevie been thinking talking to him about Patrick? That wasn’t how they did things. Didn’t she know what even hearing Patrick’s name would do to him, let alone everything else she’d said?

His mind raced as he warmed up leftovers from his fridge. Could Patrick actually still like him after this? Stevie had never lied to him. In fact, she’s always pointed out that since she was incapable of faking sincerity, she actually _couldn’t_ lie to him.

The thought scared David.

She had to be wrong about Patrick. She _had_ to be.

David couldn’t think about any of this anymore. He decided to just focus on being mad at Stevie for making his already bad night even worse.

He knew in the back of his mind that none of this was Stevie’s fault and that she really did have his best interest at heart, but being angry at his best friend was infinitely easier than thinking about his soulmate.

He wished, not for the first time, that he’d never met Patrick, that he’d never lived in Schitt’s Creek, that he’d never left his old life behind. That life had been sad and lonely, but at least he’d understood it. This one was too complicated.

David talked to Stevie less after that, just a few phone calls here and there when he needed a distraction and sporadic texts to keep each other updated. Neither of them ever mentioned Patrick.

But Alexis did, much to David’s annoyance.

“Patrick asked about you again today,” she said a week later, again on the phone before he went to work. It was Alexis’s free time between breakfast with Ted and her online class that met twice weekly, so she often called David. He appreciated it, but not when she brought up his soulmate.

“Did he?” David asked trying to feign disinterest.

“Yes! Honestly, I think he might have a crush on you. He has the cutest little smile on his face when I tell him stories about you. Honestly, if you were back here, I’d tell you to get on that.”

Her words broke David’s heart all over again.

“I only knew him for like three days, Alexis,” he tried to rationalize.

“So? The one time I was around both of you, you were like obsessed with each other.”

“How would you know that?” David snapped defensively. “You spent that whole dinner either worrying about Ted or making out with Ted, which wasn’t fun for _any_ of us, just to let you know.”

Alexis ignored his complaint. “Aw, you remember exactly when you spent time with Patrick!”

“Alexis, seriously, stop.”

She let out a huff, and David could practically hear her eyeroll. “Fine, David. I guess I just wish you were back here, and I got a little carried away.”

David managed a small smile at Alexis’s admission. “I miss you too, Alexis.”

“I wasn’t lying about Patrick being into you though. I could ask him for you if you want. He’s such a button face, David!”

“Ugh, Alexis!”

The conversation ended not long after that.

Another week passed. David found himself growing less sad and more resigned. He missed his parents. He missed Alexis. He missed Stevie. He missed Schitt’s Creek.

He missed Patrick.

Alexis had started mentioning the other man more and more often now that he was helping her with her classes and working on the motel project with her and Stevie, though she had finally laid off most of the insinuations that Patrick liked David. Alexis had determined that talking about Patrick as a possible romantic partner for David made David miss Schitt’s Creek since he was so far away, and David hadn’t bothered to correct her since it was technically true, even if there were about a million more layers to it than that.

But the side effect of Alexis talking more about Patrick in casual conversation was that it made David remember all the things he’d liked about Patrick before their conversation in the motel. His smile, his laugh, the way he made fun of David with a kindness that David hadn’t thought was possible. How he had been so supportive of Stevie. How he had let David steal most of his muffin and then made fun of him about it in that sweet way that didn’t make David feel guilty.

And now Patrick was doing anything he could to be there for David’s sister when David was a thousand miles away.

He was good, he was kind, and David missed him.

An afternoon after he’d been in New York about a month, David found himself wandering around the unusually quiet store floor thinking about design ideas for a new display.

Two young sales associates that David didn’t really know were standing by the dressing rooms chatting loud enough for David to hear over the ambient music.

“Ugh, just after Ben I don’t know if I can ever date anyone else again,” one of the women complained.

“Do you know if he was your soulmate?” the other asked.

The first woman sighed. “I’m not sure. He clearly wasn’t as in the relationship as I was, so it’s really hard to tell. I wish I knew for sure if he was my soulmate so I could go fight for him, you know? I might call him later anyway. He makes me happy. That should be enough right?”

David didn’t hear the other woman’s reply. The lovesick sale’s associate’s words had transported David back to the Café as he watched Ted tell Alexis that he didn’t need more time to think about what they had gone through separately and together; it was enough that they were soulmates. It had always been enough.

In his head he heard his father telling him to figure out what makes him happy and to hell with everything else.

Patrick. _Patrick_ made him happy. Patrick made him laugh and made him feel warm. He respected him and cared about him and had asked David to be with him for as long as David would let him. Patrick was David’s soulmate. And maybe, just maybe, that could _actually_ be enough.

“What _the fuck_ have I been doing?” David said out loud, startling the two women who hadn’t realized he was there.

“Um, Mr. Rose?” the not-romantically-troubled sales associate said cautiously, but David ignored her, his head clearer than he had been in weeks.

He needed to go to Patrick. He needed to apologize. They were soulmates; that was enough. He still cared for Patrick, truly, deeply cared for Patrick, and if there was some hope that Patrick still had feelings for him, like Stevie and Alexis had said, he needed to be there. He had to try.

It was as though a switch had been turned on inside David. The faintest hint of warmth instantly swelled up inside him, deep in his chest, a tiny fire fighting off the cold that had been overtaking him for so long.

It was Patrick.

David could come home.


	9. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been absolutely the most fun thing to write, and I cannot thank all of you guys enough for all the comments and kudos and everything. You all are wonderful, and I appreciate you so much.
> 
> I had this idea for how the story was going to end long before I'd worked out most of the middle parts of this, so I really hope you guys like how it turned out!
> 
> Enjoy!

David closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the warmth in his chest thaw out the rest of his body. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

More than enough really.

He had never felt Patrick when he was in New York, even before they’d been cut off from each other. New York had always been freezing regardless of how his day was going or what he was doing.

But if he could feel Patrick now, that meant something. It meant that in spite of their month apart and the way David had rejected Patrick, they were somehow even closer than ever.

The thought brought a smile to David’s face that he couldn’t get rid of even if he’d wanted to.

David knew what he had to do. Within ten minutes he had quit his job, his boss waving him away with a sad smile as soon as he said the words “my soulmate” and thanking him for at least leaving between projects. He quickly packed up the few things he’d had on his desk and said goodbye to a knot of curious coworkers that had gathered in the back once word had spread that David Rose had had some realization and was leaving the store and also the city, before emerging onto the sidewalk happier than he had been in a very long time.

He took a deep breath, reveling in the sun shining down on him and the little bit of heat that was still warming him from the inside.

He felt free.

David wanted to go to his car immediately and start driving up to Schitt’s Creek, but he forced himself to be a little patient and at least pack a couple bags. He would have to come back to New York again to pack up the rest of his stuff and turn in his keys to the property manager, but he needed to bring enough stuff that he could go at least a week or two before he had to make the long drive again (or longer if he could bribe Stevie to do his laundry).

Within an hour, David was on the road, his mind focused and a smile still on his face.

Little by little, as David made it out of the city, the warmth inside him began to grow. There was still plenty of cold left since Patrick was far away, but it was disappearing more quickly than David had expected.

A couple hours outside New York, David stopped to get gas and grab some good, happily stretching out his arms and legs to properly feel the bit of warmth that had finally reached them. He expected the feeling to stay the same while he took his brief break in the drive, but as he walked back to his car, David consciously felt the heat inside him increase even though nothing had changed on David’s end.

It was almost like he wasn’t the only one trying to get back to his soulmate.

David’s heart leaped in his chest.

Patrick.

David got back on the road, noticing the warmth inside him growing once again, and he called Stevie.

“David? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she answered the phone suspiciously.

“I quit,” he explained off-handily. “Have you seen Patrick today?”

“What?” Stevie was more confused than she already had been.

“Patrick,” David repeated, undeterred. “Have you seen him today?”

“Uh, no?” Stevie finally answered him. “We were supposed to have a meeting, but then a couple hours ago he texted me saying that something came up and he had to cancel.” She paused. “David, is something going on?”

David tried to calm himself down. Patrick had cancelled his meeting with Stevie once he felt David again. He was coming to find him. He _had_ to be. “Yeah, I think there might be something, Stevie.”

“Like… a good something?” she asked hesitantly.

David nodded even though he knew Stevie couldn’t see him. “I think a very good something.”

“Wait, really?” The confusion was gone from Stevie’s voice replaced by actual excitement.

“I can feel him again, Stevie,” David said, his words sounding happier maybe than they ever had. “I feel warm.”

“Are you serious, David? That’s amazing!”

“I know, I know. Okay I really have to concentrate, but I’ll see you soon maybe? Probably?”

“I’m so happy for you.”

David sighed, grateful for the millionth time in the last month for his best friend. “Thanks, Stevie.”

He kept driving, the warmth inside him growing with every mile. He wasn’t exactly sure of the best way to get to Schitt’s Creek, or wherever Patrick was now, but David didn’t bother to pull out his phone for directions. He could feel inside him that he was going the right way, and when he started to feel momentarily cooler, he got off one highway and onto another and warmed right up again. It was Patrick guiding him to where he needed to go.

He heard Adelina’s voice in his head from his childhood. _Warm. Warmer. Warmer. Hot._

Hours passed, David sang along with his music and thought about what he would say to Patrick when he saw him again. He had to apologize first, for everything, but after that David wasn’t sure. He just wanted to feel Patrick, that heat he’d felt when his soulmate had taken his hand. That feeling of _rightness_ like they were exactly where they were supposed to be. He didn’t need any more than that.

The sky grew darker outside, and David glanced at his phone momentarily when a text came in from Alexis asking her to call him when he could with a bunch of exclamation points.

There were a myriad of things that were exclamation-point-worthy for Alexis, but one of those things was certainly news about Patrick, so he immediately called his sister, if only to be sure.

“Oh hey, David! I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.” Alexis sounded excited

“What’s up?”

“Well, do you remember back when we were first in town a month ago and Stevie was telling us about the motel, and I said I had an idea?”

“Uh huh….” David replied slowly, deflating slightly at the realization that this was very likely _not_ about Patrick.

“Well my idea was that since Dad needed a business to work on since that real estate thing he’s doing is super tiny, and Stevie needs more resources, Dad should help with the motel! Like they could start a franchise or something. So I’ve been working through what that would look like, and I brought it up to Stevie last week and she seemed like she could be into it, and I asked Dad about it yesterday, and he just got back to me and said he’s in. It’s like perfect, David! They can work on creating a chain of motels between Schitt’s Creek and the city, and it gives Mom and Dad a reason to come out here from. They’ll be able to keep in touch with everyone without actually having to live here full time!”

David could hear the pride in Alexis’s voice at orchestrating this deal, and it made him smile for a moment. This was a great development for Alexis, his parents, Stevie, and he supposed himself too now that there was a pretty high likelihood that he was moving back to Schitt’s Creek for good.

“That’s great, Alexis,” he replied with as much enthusiasm as he could muster while he tried to focus on the feeling inside him. There was an exit coming up in a few miles and David had to figure out whether or not he needed to take it to get to Patrick. 

“Come on, David!” Alexis complained. “Be more excited! This is a big deal!”

“Yes, I understand that, and I will be more excited later,” David said distractedly. “But I really only called to make sure you didn’t have any news about Patrick.”

“Patrick?” Alexis asked, confused. “What would I need to tell you about Patrick? He totally signed off on the motel chain idea, by the way. He helped me get all the numbers I needed to sell Stevie and Dad on the whole thing. He seemed really excited to get both our parents up here.”

David shook his head, unable to stop the smile spreading across his face. If Patrick had been there, David would have glared at him and warned him against wanting all the Roses back in Schitt’s Creek, but David could feel kindness in Patrick’s actions and maybe even a ploy to get David to come back. David liked him even more for it.

“I actually should probably tell Patrick that Dad agreed,” Alexis was still talking, more to herself now than to David. “But he was so weird earlier.”

Alexis’s words finally captured David’s full attention. “Weird how?” he asked immediately.

“Well, he was helping me with homework, and he stopped talking in the middle of explaining some budget thing, and then he just sat there with this huge smile on his face and ignored me for like an entire minute while I was trying to get his attention, until he said he had to go and just ran out. Like what was that about?”

David couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. _He’d_ done that. He’d made Patrick so happy that he stopped paying attention to Alexis or caring about where he was. He’d made Patrick smile, and David couldn’t wait to see him and that smile again.

“Oh, do you think it was some kind of soulmate thing?” Alexis asked, thinking it through herself. “I know sometimes I felt like that with Ted. Aw, David. If Patrick has a soulmate then maybe he doesn’t actually have a crush on you. I shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up like that.”

David rolled his eyes, but he decided that he might as well tell Alexis the truth if she already knew something was up. “Literally Alexis, _I’m_ Patrick’s soulmate.”

“You’re… what? You and Patrick are _soulmates_? And you didn’t tell me?” The annoyance in Alexis’s voice was overshadowed by her excitement.

“You kept Ted a secret way longer than this, so I really don’t feel bad about any of it,” David replied with another eyeroll.

“But David, Patrick’s such a cutie! You could have stayed here and been like super cute together!”

“Yeah, I know that Alexis. We had a really bad conversation the last time we saw each other, and it’s been torture to even think about him – so thanks for bringing him up literally _all_ the time – but I’m driving up to find him right now, so hopefully it’ll actually be okay.”

“David! That’s such a like big romantic gesture! Look at you!” Alexis had veered passed excited right into thrilled and had also completely ignored David’s complaint about her constantly reminding him of his lost soulmate for the last month.

“Literally stop talking to me. I have to concentrate.”

“Oh are you like trying to feel where he is by how warm you are? David, that’s so cute!’

“Goodbye, Alexis.” David insisted with an air of finality.

“You’re coming up here, right? So I’ll see you soon?”

David fought off a smile at the prospect of being back in the same town as his sister. “Ugh, probably,” he said instead. “Not that I really want to now.”

“Oh, yay David! Yay!”

“ _Goodbye_ , Alexis,” he repeated, more forcefully this time.

“Bye, David. Go get your guy!”

“Oh my God.” He hung up the phone.

He was immediately glad that Alexis hadn’t known Patrick was his soulmate for the last month. She would have been absolutely insufferable. Even now she might still be. If David hadn’t been so excited to be with Patrick and go find his future in Schitt’s Creek, he might have second thoughts about moving somewhere so close to Alexis.

Though not really. He missed his sister and his parents, and he was more than a little bit excited about getting to be closer to them again.

David refocused on the warmth in his chest that seemed to be decreasing just a little bit, so David impulsively got off the highway. As soon as he pulled onto the exit ramp, the heat inside him grew even more intense, almost as hot as it had been when Patrick had held his hand in the motel room.

Patrick was close by.

A few turns after pulling off the highway, David found himself in a town larger than Schitt’s Creek, though much smaller than any kind of city. He drove aimlessly for a while, trying to figure out where exactly Patrick’s warmth was coming from. He had to concentrate a bit, but he quickly figured out that he felt the most heat coming from some kind of event happening at a riverfront park.

Confused as to what Patrick would be doing there, David parked his car in a downtown lot and walked toward the lights, feeling the warmth inside him increase, letting him know immediately he was going the right way. 

When David had first felt warm in Schitt’s Creek, he’d wondered how soulmates were actually supposed to find each other when the warmth that he could feel was so broad. But now he understood. With every step he took toward Patrick, David could feel his heat inside him growing somehow more and more intense. It could only be leading him to Patrick.

David reached the riverfront area and found himself at the edge of an outdoor market with stalls illuminated by aesthetically correct string lights that reflected off the water.

David meandered through the booths of handicrafts remembering his idea for the Schitt’s Creek general store. He could actually _do_ that now if he was moving back. Patrick had already fleshed out the idea a bit over coffee in Elmdale that afternoon before he left, and David had a lot more ideas already, even without thinking too hard about it. That could be his future. He and his soulmate and a store that was theirs together. David surprised himself by how much he wanted it.

His attention was caught for a moment by a stall in front of a bakery that was selling fresh baked goods made special for the event.

David took a step toward the booth, but the heat in his chest momentarily lessened and David stepped back. He could complain to Patrick later about being denied a delicious-looking cupcake because he was so focused on finding his soulmate.

David turned away from the stall and felt the heat in his chest grow even more as he walked down another row of vendors to where the crowd was thinner.

The stalls ended at a walkway along the riverfront, illuminated by streetlights, with a very picturesque bridge leading to some more well-lit buildings, maybe galleries of some kind, on the other side of the river.

Couples milled about eating and chatting, hand-in-hand, but David didn’t pay any attention to them or to the river or the lights or the galleries.

Because there was Patrick, staring out at the water, a white paper box in his hand. And David felt like he was going to combust.

Patrick turned around, clearly sensing that something had changed. That David was nearby.

Patrick’s eyes found his immediately, and his soulmate’s face melted into a smile so filled with warmth and affection that it made David’s breath catch in his throat, startling him more than the heat that was practically burning inside him.

Patrick took a step toward him.

“You came after me,” David said softly, mirroring Patrick and moving closer.

Patrick closed the distance between them, his eyes shining. “I felt warm.”

“I thought you hated me after what I said,” David admitted, finding it suddenly hard to meet the earnestness in Patrick’s eyes.

Patrick shook his head. “No, David. I could never hate you. Not ever. It’s okay. You’re here now.”

A smile spread across David’s face as he let out a breath, looking up at Patrick again. “Yeah. I’m here. We’re here.”

Patrick held out the box that was in his hands. “I bought you something. That’s why I stopped here actually. I knew you were getting close, and I thought you might be hungry, so I just kind of drove around and found this little market.”

David took the box from Patrick and opened it.

“I was going to get you a muffin, like the one that you stole from me in that café in Elmdale, but muffins go with breakfast and coffee, so I thought maybe a cupcake?”

David stared down at the freshly baked cupcake, identical to the one at the bakery he’d passed to come find Patrick. He’d only spent a few days with this man, but he already knew David and cared about him more than David could have ever imagined.

David closed the box evenly and set it on the ground next to them.

Patrick’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, but David didn’t let that stop him as he wrapped his arms around Patrick’s neck and kissed him.

David was on fire. There was no room in David’s head for any other thought. Every part of him that was touching Patrick was burning from the inside, and David couldn’t get enough of it. He wanted Patrick, _needed_ Patrick. There was no possible way he could ever be close enough to this man.

Patrick responded almost instantly, wrapping his arms around David’s back and pulling him to eliminate all space between them, his lips slanting against David’s to deepen the kiss.

This was… euphoria. All David wanted was to be this warm all the time. The fire inside him was both passionate and comfortable, exciting and easy. Kissing Patrick on this riverfront walkway in some town he didn’t even know the name of: _that_ felt like home. _Patrick_ felt like home.

Eventually Patrick pulled back, but not far, letting his forehead rest against David’s for a moment, their breath mixing together as they grinned giddily at each other, Patrick’s arms still at David’s waist and David’s still around Patrick’s neck.

“Wow,” Patrick breathed out, staring at David almost mystified.

“I feel like I’m on fire. How am I not on fire? How are _we_ not on fire?” David glanced around as though an answer would appear out of the ground, eliciting a laugh from Patrick.

“I don’t know about a fire, but you’re pretty hot,” Patrick deadpanned back.

David groaned and buried his face in the crook of Patrick’s neck. “That’s almost as bad as Ted,” he complained.

He felt Patrick shrug against him. “I _have_ been spending a lot of time with Ted and Alexis. I would have asked him for some more pointers if I knew I’d get this reaction from you.”

David pulled back from Patrick and shook his head, but he couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across his face at just the sight of Patrick in front of him, looking at David like he was the most wonderful thing in the universe.

David stepped fully back into Patrick’s embrace to feel the fire inside him again. “I’ve never felt anything like this,” he whispered into Patrick’s shoulder. “I don’t know if I ever wanted to… until I met you.”

Patrick ducked his head down to kiss David’s forehead and then his lips as David looked up at him. David could see tears behind the other man’s eyes, but Patrick smiled into the kiss and David felt like he was going to explode.

“I’m so glad I met you, David Rose,” Patrick breathed across his lips as they broke apart.

David shook his head. “You shouldn’t be. I hurt you.”

“But you came back,” Patrick reminded him, his thumb tracing soothing lines along David’s back. “What happened today?” he pressed softly. “I mean, what changed?”

David didn’t answer immediately, instead letting his hands drift down Patrick’s arms, intertwining their hands between them. He realized gratefully that he could still feel the fire inside of him even from this small connection.

Patrick squeezed his hands, and David smiled softly at him before he finally spoke. “I’m not sure exactly. My dad told me before I went back to New York that if I found what made me happy I should just care about that and not anything else. And then Alexis has been telling me that you have a _crush_ on me.”

Patrick ducked his head, and David could see him blush even in the lamplight.

“And Stevie said you’d been miserable,” David added, quieter this time.

Patrick looked up at him, the smallest bit of hurt in his eyes, and David knew Stevie hadn’t been exaggerating.

“I’m so sorry, Patrick,” David said, his words definite and sincere. He could feel pinpricks of tears in his eyes, but he didn’t drop Patrick’s gaze. “You didn’t deserve that. I didn’t even give you a choice. I just assumed you wouldn’t really want to be with me, and I wouldn’t let myself even imagine being with you. But it wasn’t fair to you. Especially because you’re so nice and kind and you have that dumb little smile whenever you make fun of me that I think about all the time.”

Patrick’s face immediately morphed into the exact smile that David had first liked (or more than liked) about Patrick, his eyes sparkling.

“Don’t you dare make fun of me right now,” David warned him, blinking back tears through a smile that removed any possible threat from his words.

“Why would I ever do that, David?” Patrick asked in a voice laced with sarcasm.

“You’re lucky you’re my soulmate,” David complained, but Patrick’s teasing melted away at David’s words.

“I _am_ lucky you’re my soulmate,” Patrick replied seriously, releasing one of David’s hands to cup his cheek, the pad of his thumb stroking across his face. “Do you know how excited I was when I figured it out that day at the Café? My soulmate was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. He was funny and good and _such_ an easy target.” Patrick’s thumb ran over David’s lips. “And he came back to me.”

David reached up to Patrick’s hand on his cheek and moved it so he could press a kiss to Patrick’s palm, reveling in the heat that came with the contact. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Patrick leaned in to press his lips to David’s once again. Softly, sweetly.

_Warm and toasty_ , that’s what Adelina had told David all those years ago. That’s how it felt.

“Good,” Patrick replied with a grin as they broke apart. “I think Stevie was getting pretty sick of me moping around anyway.” He stopped and glanced back at David. “So that was why you came back? Stevie said I was sad?”

David shook his head but then reconsidered. “I mean, that was part of it; it was all part of it. I was miserable too.”

Patrick squeezed his hand again reassuringly.

“But in the end it was just some random girl in the store talking about a guy who had broken up with her,” David recounted pensively. “She said she didn’t know if he was her soulmate, but that he made her happy so that was enough.” David wrinkled his nose. “Honestly, her guy sounded like kind of an asshole, but it reminded me that I actually _had_ a soulmate who I really liked who I thought was really cute and who had actually told me that he wanted to be with me for whatever reason. And I just thought, what kind of person would I be if I gave up on that?”

David looked up at Patrick with more confidence than he had felt in a long time. “It’s what Ted said to Alexis in the Café right before they got together. That they were soulmates and that should be enough.” David shrugged. “I just let myself actually believe that it’s true for us too. We’re soulmates, so that’s enough. And then I could feel you again.”

Another smile spread across Patrick’s face, this one filled with hope and happiness, as he pulled David into a hug, pressing a kiss to his neck as he held David tightly.

“We’re soulmates, and it will _always_ be enough,” Patrick spoke into David’s shoulder like a mantra. “Don’t ever worry about that.”

David closed his eyes tightly trying to stop tears from escaping as he clung to Patrick, to his soulmate.

“So, where are you headed now?” Patrick asked him as casually as he could when they finally separated.

David knew he could have made a sarcastic comment or a joke to lighten the mood between them, but all he could do was reply honestly. “Wherever you are.”

David had never seen Patrick’s eyes light up quite like that.

“Thank you,” Patrick said softly, intertwining his fingers with David’s.

“For what?” David asked, confused.

Patrick pressed a soft kiss to David’s lips. “For finding me.”

David held his soulmate in his arms knowing that there were conversations they still needed to have about David’s past and Patrick’s past and their new future together, about plans for a locally sourced, general but very specific store that David knew he would need a lot of business help on (but luckily he knew a guy), about Stevie and Alexis and David’s parents who were apparently going to be part of their lives in the town again in some capacity, about the apartment David still had in New York and a new place for him to live in Schitt’s Creek that could actually just end up being the motel, about the cupcake still sitting in the box at David’s feet that he _really_ just wanted to eat right now if Patrick was okay with them finding a nice bench to sit on.

But for that moment David was happy to just enjoy the warmth of his soulmate who he had found again in some random town, who had come after him after a month of being cold, who David knew he was never _ever_ going to let go.

He had Patrick. That was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!!!
> 
> Come talk David and Patrick or whatever else on tumblr: @parksanddownton603


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